


You Will See Me

by likeabomb



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Coping, Depression, Disability, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sibling Bonding, Trauma, death ideation, recovery process
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-12-01 21:19:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20902436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeabomb/pseuds/likeabomb
Summary: After being rescued from hell itself, Arsenal has trouble coming to terms with what happened, and where it leaves him. The rest of the Arrows do what they can. Together, they can figure out how to keep their little family afloat.





	You Will See Me

**Author's Note:**

> A real passion project, trying to delve into the complicated trauma and recovery and bonds the original Roy Harper is faced with after his rescue from the hands of Lex Luthor. A lot of learning to forgive, or at least try, and a support system he can rely on.
> 
> A small note, Will Harper is referred to as Roy Harper in this fic, because it takes place before either he or Arsenal changes their names during the timeskip between seasons 2 and 3.
> 
> It should also be noted, canon was changed slightly so that it was Conner who went undercover, not Artemis. She is still working as Artemis, not Tigress, and it's Conner that's Kaldur's right hand man inside The Light.
> 
> And the art was done by the ever wonderful [feelingwhimsy!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21112235/chapters/50237930#workskin)

**STARCITY**

**March 22, 20:31 PST**

  
  
The night’s calm, or calm enough for Star City, and the wind on his face is cool, even while the rest of the night is warm. It’s strange knowing it’s March, when the last he remembers, it was September. But it’s more than that. It’s not months. It’s years. Years he lost to the darkness, to the cold numbness he can’t seem to shake loose from his fingers, the tip of his nose. He doesn’t know what he ever did to deserve the treatment he got, but he knows well enough that it wasn’t anything he did, and more just a stroke of bad luck. Luthor saw an opportunity, and took it, and Roy- _Arsenal_, was the one to pay for it.  
  
The rock he’s been rolling in his palm gets lobbed with a frustrated yell off into the city. He doesn’t hear it land, wherever it does. It might have broken a window. It might have hit a car. It might have knocked some unsuspecting civilian in the head.  
  
Maybe then someone would have the same kind of sheer dumb luck he’s had.

Arsenal tucks his head into his shoulder and arm, scrubbing his hand over his head, tugging at his hair. He feels the sick bubbling of acid up his throat and wonders if he’ll puke from the ungodly amounts of rage he feels.  
  
He’s already tired of feeling angry. He wasn’t always the most friendly, he was always a bit of a smartass and a dickhead, but the way he feels now, anytime he’s left alone with his thoughts for just a moment too long, is all consuming. It makes him feel hollow, and all together too full of the feeling to keep it contained, to keep it quiet. And he doesn’t know how else to express it or relieve the pressure, than to scream and throw things and break anything he can get his hands on.  
  
Hand.

Just the one.  
  
“Well, don’t you look like shit.”  
  
Arsenal jumps hard, heart in his throat, choking him as he stumbles to the side a step, reaching for purchase with an arm he doesn’t have anymore and landing himself square on his ass in the loose gravel on the roof.  
  
“Jesus fuckin’ shit-”  
  
“Wow man, are you alright?”  
  
Scowling hard, he pushes himself up onto his elbow to direct that snarl at the person who startled him. A woman, dressed in green. She’s got long blonde hair pulled back in an unruly ponytail. She’s got a bow and quiver strapped to her back.  
  
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He growls, pushing himself up to sitting before rubbing his hand against his pants to dislodge the gravel embedded in his hand. No broken skin. He can’t really afford to injure the one hand he’s got left, though Arsenal has a feeling that’ll be inevitable when it’s really all he’s got left to work with.  
  
“Coming to see Green Arrow. You his guard dog? Down, Fido.” She remarks, climbing over the wall to plant her feet and lean against the wall a little, looking him over.  
  
Arsenal hates her eyes on him. He hates anyone looking at him lately. All he can think is that they’re staring at what he’s lost.  
  
He half turns away from her, hiding his missing limb with the rest of his body.  
  
“Who are you?”  
  
Smiling a little, she has a way about her that seems almost predatory. She’s strong, and she’s the kind to fight tooth and nail for what she wants, Arsenal can tell.  
  
“Artemis. Green Arrow’s niece.”  
  
Scoffing, he shakes his head, “Nice try, Green Arrow doesn’t _have_ a niece.”  
  
Artemis tilts her head a little as she watches him, and Arsenal squares his shoulders, like a challenge. He doesn’t want to be scrutinized, but if she’s gonna be looking at him like that, he might as well make sure she knows he’s not gonna give her an inch. He’s not gonna give anyone a single fucking centimeter ever again.  
  
“Who are _you_?” She gestures, relaxing a little as she crosses her arms over her chest. Her outfit does remind him a lot of Oliver’s in style. Is she just more he missed in the time he was in captivity?  
  
“Arsenal.”  
  
She doesn’t look convinced or even moved. He wants to say he’s got some connection to Oliver, but right now, he wishes he didn’t. Oliver can fuck himself with half his quiver for all Arsenal gives a damn.  
  
“Is that… supposed to mean something?” Artemis presses, squinting a little. She glances around a little, confused.  
  
He growls his frustration, rubbing his hand hard over his admittedly shaggy hair. He’s starting to shake a little, that anger and frustration boiling up in him. He hates how much it makes him feel like he needs to break everything.  
  
“I’m… I _was_ Green Arrow’s ward.”  
  
That catches her attention and she stops moving, even idly, watching him with a different sort of glint to her eye.  
  
“You’re Green Arrow’s ward,” she repeats, and it takes a lot of willpower not to call her an idiot.  
  
“Was,” he insists, his face serious.  
  
She puts her hands up, shaking her head, “Whatever you say, man. The only…” she trails off, looking at him, blinking slowly, brows pinched, “The only ward I know Green Arrow’s ever had is Roy Harper. And you…”  
  
“Are Roy Harper!” Arsenal throws his arm up, turning to lean his back hard against the wall, heaving a sigh. “I’m Roy Harper, Oliver Queen’s ward. And if you’re his niece, you should probably know about what happened.”  
  
“You’re him. You’re _real_.” She says it like the wind’s been knocked out of her. She crouches down, and then sits with her legs tucked up under her and to the side. Pulling her mask off she relaxes her shoulders a little. Apparently this kind of news is enough to ease her guard. That’s dumb too.  
  
“He’s been lookin’ for forever, unlike everyone else, so it’s no wonder you heard.” He bites quietly, wrapping his arm around himself.  
  
“Of course I heard. He’s been running himself into the ground for _years_ looking for you. And you’re here. You’re alive.”  
  
Arsenal scoffs, rolling his eyes. Some small, quiet, dark part of him, wishes he wasn’t. It’d be better than the terror and fury that rips through his mind whenever it’s silent, whenever it’s dark.  
  
“And honestly, you look like shit.”  
  
He turns his head quickly to look at her and the smile she’s got on her lips, squinting hard at her.  
  
“Well aren’t you just a well of positivity and sunshine! No shit I look like shit.”  
  
“Cigarette?”  
  
Taken aback, he watches as she pulls out a crushed pack of smokes from one of the pouches on her hip, offering it to him. The lighter’s tucked in the pack too.  
  
“I don’t smoke too often anymore, but I keep ‘em on me, just in case.”  
  
In truth, Arsenal hasn’t smoked in years. He did when he lived on the streets before Oliver took him in, but after he became Ollie’s ward, he stopped smoking. But now… it’s too tempting to pass up.  
  
He reaches and hesitates and Artemis taps one out for him. He gives her a grateful look, even if he doesn’t want to, and plucks it out, pushing it between his lips. She taps the lighter out too, and flicks it before offering him the flame. He leans in and waits for it to catch before he pulls a drag as he sits back. It’s a sense of calm that rushes through him, and he can’t help but think most of it’s a placebo, but he’ll take a placebo chill over the overwhelming amounts of anger he feels at any given moment.  
  
Another few drags before he finally looks at her again and she’s settled herself beside him, back to the wall, knees up, each arm on each knee to chill. Her bow and quiver are between them on the roof.  
  
“It’s really you…”  
  
Her eyes are far away, watching the sky. There’s no stars with this much light pollution, but there’s clouds, albeit very few. It really is a nice night, despite everything.  
  
Arsenal huffs a laugh, flicking ash off the end, “Yeah. It’s me. I… didn’t know you, before.”  
  
“No,” she confirms, and a sense of relief rushes down his spine. He was worried for a moment that he’d had more taken from him. But no. She’d come into their lives after he’d left them. “But I heard a lot about you.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Roy and Oliver at night sometimes would sit and talk. It wasn’t very often. Things weren’t good. After they found out what happened, that he was a clone, they’d talk about what that meant, and talk about what he remembered from when he was young. It was a lot of things Oliver could verify, from even before you’d been taken. I don’t know what it was meant to help, though. Knowing he’s a clone, and knowing his memories had been falsified? They were real, but not his? I don’t think I’d handle that shit well.”  
  
Artemis talks, and Arsenal listens.  
  
“Things got bad way too fast though. They looked everywhere, they searched day in and day out. Oliver stopped going to Justice League meetings, Roy stopped seeing my sister. That was a whole thing, too.” She shakes her head. “It became all consuming. And, I understood, but there wasn’t anything I could do to help. Not that wasn’t already being done.”  
  
He wonders if she knows how much he needs this. 

He wonders how much he can admit to himself he needs this.  
  
“He worked tirelessly, got himself into drugs, stole money- said it was all in the name of finding you. Oliver eventually had a breakdown. He realized he’d lost a kid without ever knowing, and in the fallout, was losing another. Roy wouldn’t talk to him, wouldn’t come by, wouldn’t do much of anything but search.”  
  
She stops to nod to him and the cigarette in his fingers and he hands it over so she can take a drag and pass it back. Arsenal watches the wisps of smoke curl from the corners of her mouth until she lets sit all out in a cloud.  
  
“I get it, though. Oliver stopped because he was trying to figure out how to grieve loss he’d never really known until then. I guess he figured it’d be easier than searching and searching without actually knowing if they’d ever find you? If there was anything _to find_, either. Roy didn’t stop, but,” Artemis gives a little huff of a laugh, “You know how he is.”  
  
Arsenal returns that same exhale, shaking his head to take another drag. Of course he knows Roy. He _is_ Roy.  
  
Artemis goes quiet for a long time before she lets her legs down, rubbing her thighs and knees as though they’re sore.  
  
“I don’t know if things are going to get better from here or not. He shaved, at least. That’s a plus. But he’s still a heroin addict who spent the better part of the last five years of his life on a wild goose chase, cutting ties to his friends and family. And Oliver, he lost a kid, grieved in the best way he could with such a weird situational loss, and now he’s got that kid back, as though you’d never left.”  
  
She turns her head a little, “And then there’s you.”  
  
Eyes downcast, Arsenal gives her a somewhat reedy, humorless laugh, “And then there’s me.”  
  
He shakes his head and takes the last long drag of his smoke and snubs it out on the rough pavement before flicking it off onto the roof, no longer his vice or problem.  
  
“I don’t know why you told me all this, you don’t even know me, or what it’s all supposed to help- like I’m gonna feel sympathetic for Oliver, or any of those bastards who left me to rot- but…”  
  
Arsenal feels as though he should thank her, but it’s such a strange talk they’ve had. They don’t know each other, and it was a lot of information to take in all at once. 

Artemis though, seems to understand anyway, giving a shrug, “I get it. Don’t worry about it.”  
  
She stands up, stretching her arms over her head before she grabs up her bow and slings it over her shoulder, “You said Oliver was inside?”  
  
Screwing up his lips in a pout, he doesn’t answer, instead casting his eyes back up to the dark sky and the wisps of clouds. He hears her laugh a soft sound before the sound of footsteps crunching across the gravel, shockingly quiet, and then nothing.  
  
He looks back to where she’d been standing, and of course she’s not there, but she has him thinking, and thinking hard.  
  
Artemis.

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**March 24, 00:58 PST**

“Where are you going?”  
  
A voice catches him as he slings a spare bow over his shoulder, quiver on his hip. When he turns, it’s with the gleam of light off the metal of his prosthetic from the window beside him, and the light of the lamp in the room he stares into.  
  
Oliver sits at the desk just inside the room, watching him, coming to a stand when Arsenal stands with no answer.  
  
“Out.”  
  
“You’re not,” Oliver says firmly, coming around the desk to stand in the doorway.  
  
Arsenal scoffs a laugh, eyebrows shooting up to look Oliver up and down, “Do you serious think _you’re_ going to fuckin’ stop me? You’re in your fuckin’ house slippers, Oliver.”  
  
It’s not as hidden as he hopes when he winces back from his name. Arsenal shows his teeth in a mock of a grin in accomplishment. 

He wants Oliver to suffer.  
  
“You’re not going out, Arsenal. You’re still not well enough for patrols.”  
  
Oliver tries his hardest to be firm, be rigid in his decisions. But Arsenal can see very clearly just how fragile his resolve is. So, rather than standing and arguing with him, he turns and leaves. He adjusts the bow on his shoulder and walks out of the house, out the front door, and out the front gate.  
  
He never hears Oliver’s pursuit.  
  
Out into the streets of Star, he smooths the edges of the mask on his eyes before flexing the fingers of his new arm, turning his arm at the elbow, rolling the wrist. It’s incredibly responsive, as though he’d never lost anything, and part of him wants to marvel at the engineering and medical prowess that had to have been achieved in his time away, and equally nauseated at not only his time away, but the fact the prosthetic he sports is Lexcorp merchandise, tried and true.  
  
Arsenal shakes it off, trying to focus.  
  
One patrol. One night out.  
  
He’ll be back to himself in no time.  
  
Breaking into a run, climbing and jumping and sweeping through alleys and over rooftops, it really does come as second nature. So much time fending for himself as a kid, and then working alongside Oliver, a thought too, that makes the acid crawl up the back of his throat, all mean that even after so long away from this life, it’s still with him. It still sings in his blood, in the feeling of freefall into a roll or stopping short to listen closely.  
  
At one point he watches with amusement to see a cop car with both on duty pigs asleep, one with his hat over his eyes, the other with their elbow propped up on the window.  
  
Same old, same old.  
  
At one point in his patrol, he does see another figure on patrol, but it’s dark with no stars, and he doesn’t get close enough to see. He doesn’t want to see. It might be Roy, it might be Dinah, it might even be Artemis. It’s not his business, and he’s working alone tonight.  
  
When he does happen across what he’s looking for, it’s a corner store raid in the seedier part of the city, which again, fills him with a strange sense of nostalgia.  
  
He lets it all pan out for a few solid minutes before he makes a move. It’s two tall figures in hoods and dollar store animal masks, a tiger and an elephant. The tiger has a gun and the elephant is shoving all he can in their duffels. The poor owner had been caught mopping the floors in the quiet hours of the night, so he had no chance to hit the silent alarm under the desk. Arsenal would give them props if that was intentional on their part, but he doubts it.  
  
He waits until they have their bags and are making one last survey of the store before he moves.  
  
Where they go to open the doors in, he swings down off the zipline he prepped when he saw everything happening, and kicks the doors inwards, knocking them both flat on their backs. The gun goes skittering off across the floor.  
  
Amateurs.  
  
Arsenal grabs the front of the first and brings his fist down into his face, mask and all.  
  
What he doesn’t expect, though, is the feeling of something breaking under his fist, and amidst the adrenaline and the rush of the situation, he gets two more hits in before he realizes it wasn’t the mask breaking. They’re latex.  
  
The metal of the prosthetic gleams brightly under the fluorescents and he can hear the sickly wet wheeze of the man breathing hard through something broken. Arsenal isn’t sure if it’s his nose or his teeth or-  
  
The click of the gun has him looking up slowly, letting go of the body in his grip slowly. He slumps to the floor, not moving, no doubt in too much pain to see straight, let alone scramble away. The elephant masked man has the gun up, hands shaking.  
  
“Let him up, let us go, and I won’t blow your brains out.”  
  
His voice shakes almost as much as his hand.  
  
But Arsenal isn’t sure he can dodge a bullet from this close. He glances down at the guy he caved the face in of, then back up at the man with the gun, and the owner of the little store beyond him, behind the counter wide eyed.  
  
Arsenal raises his hands slowly, standing slowly, and backing away slowly. He might be backing off this, but his voice is still firm as he growls out, “Leave the goods.”  
  
The man with the gun waves it, “You really makin’ demands? I’ll splatter you!”  
  
The gun makes him nervous, for good reason, of course, he’s not an idiot. He has _some_ self preservation.  
  
He stays back, hands up, and when the guy rushes to help his buddy up, tries to rouse him to some kind of consciousness, enough to at least drag his sorry ass out, Arsenal takes the opportunity to reach quick and grab his head, bringing it down against his knee hard.  
  
It’s enough to stun him, and Arsenal takes the gun, pops the safety, and tosses it to the clerk.  
  
Taking two steps back, he feels for the pattern of notches in the feathers in the quiver at his hip and pulls one, nocks it, and lets it go. It’s not a lot of space to be shooting arrows in the store, of course, but it does pop before it hits it’s target, and a net pins the two of them to the floor. It’s thick enough cable, like his ziplines, that they won’t be able to get out of it.  
  
Arsenal grabs a few sticks of jerky, salutes the owner, and ducks out into the night.  
  
He runs and ducks and skirts his way back towards the estate, stopping short enough to catch his breath on the roof. When he does though, the rush of a panic attack grips his chest, making his breath come in ragged wheezes. He stumbles a step, catching himself against the edge of the concrete wall on the roof.  
  
His vision swims and he gulps down cold night are to try to center himself. It only does so much at first, his knees threaten to buckle under him.  
  
The prosthetic, he’s come to realize, is a lot more solid than his hand had been before. It’s metal and fibers he can’t even identify, and when he brought his fist down into the man’s face, it was with much more force than he’d anticipated. He hadn’t seen the grisly mess he’d left his face, but he knows that something had definitely broken, and not in a way that would be particularly pretty with the sound of his breathing after.  
  
Clawing at his arm and the release for the arm, it pops, and he pulls it off, tossing it to the ground.  
  
Arsenal sinks to his knees hard, a broken glass bottle he hadn’t realized he’d broken in his haze and panic biting through his jeans.  
  
Time passes, his head swimming, his world wavering, his breathing ragged and his lungs burning, and eventually, he comes back to himself.  
  
Exhaustion sinks its claws into him, greedily dragging him down, heavy and sluggish.  
  
Collecting up his bow and the prosthetic he’d thrown away, Arsenal takes care in climbing down, and along the dark streets, until he ducks into the Queen estates and slips back in the door.  
  
Oliver isn’t at his desk, the light is off, though the door is open.  
  
Even bone tired, he picks the glass from his knees with a pair of tweezers and sits in the bottom of the tub and lets the scalding hot water rush down over his head and shoulders.  
  
He feels cold.  
  
The light of the bedroom and the bathroom both stay on. Oliver’s got more than enough money, he doesn’t give a shit about the electric bill.  
  
Crawling into bed, he’s taken swiftly by sleep, sweet unconsciousness.

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**March 24, 08:12 PST**

“Croissant?”  
  
Arsenal sucks in a breath, looking up quickly at the source of the noise-  
  
Artemis.  
  
She looks different without her mask, but, he supposes, that’s kind of the point.  
  
Holding out a brown paper bag, she shakes it a little, “Back to earth, we’ve got croissants. I think there’s a couple muffins and a kolache in there too. Don’t eat that danish though, Dinah will have your head.”  
  
Artemis sets the bag down on the table in front of him before she pats his shoulder once as she walks by, disappearing farther into the house.  
  
Arsenal swallows hard, scrambling desperately to find his bearings. A cup of coffee in front of him, black, cold to the touch. A bag of still warm pastries in the middle of the table. Morning sunshine filtering in through the half curtains along the window behind the sink.  
  
Blinking slowly, he feels like he moves through sludge reaching for the bag. Finding something to eat and actually eating are done with the same frustrating sluggishness.  
  
When he hears noise again, it’s Artemis coming back through the kitchen and digging through the bag to find a chocolate croissant. She putters around, pulling down one of the mismatched cups and filling it with coffee. She offers the pot to Arsenal who hums, mouth full, and moves to lean over to the sink from where he’s sitting and offer her his empty cup. She fills it and he curls his hand around it gratefully soaking up the warmth from the mug.  
  
She sits down heavy with a heave of a sigh. He can see the sheen of sweat on her brow.  
  
“Morning patrol?” He asks, voice creaking more than he’d like.  
  
“Yeah. Not a lot going on. Stashed my costume and went for a jog after, just to be sure. ‘Specially with what happened last night.”  
  
Arsenal runs his thumb along the rim of his mug, “What happened last night?”  
  
“You beat a dude’s face in,” she starts, and then adds a little softer, “Kept a man’s livelihood safe. Which, let’s be honest, is the real heroics. Rent lately has been through the goddamn roof, and if that guy had lost all that money…” She makes a face.  
  
Nodding a little, Arsenal goes back to eating the one lone kolache she’d brought with her.  
  
She dips her croissant in her coffee, and polishes it off pretty quick before she gets a second cup and takes more time drinking that one.  
  
Neither of them talks after that. Not for a while, at least.  
  
After the dregs of her second cup, and the last gulp of Arsenal’s first are ice cold in the bottom of his cup, she stands up again, stretching as she does.  
  
“I’d get on getting a better costume. The merry men look isn’t really you.”  
  
Arsenal actually laughs at that, looking up at her, a smile tugging at his lips, “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll work on it.”  
  
She nods for him, and grabs her bag from beside the door, slinging it over her shoulder, and then she’s gone, back out into the streets.

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**March 24, 09:47 PST**

“Who is she?”  
  
“Uuuuuhhhh,” Oliver drones, looking up from where he’s wrist deep washing dishes in the sink. “That would depend on who you’re referring to.”  
  
He moves quickly to rinse his hands, dishes a long forgotten task he’ll come back to later. Arsenal is talking to him, and he’s going to get Oliver’s undivided attention.  
  
“Artemis.”  
  
“Oh. Right. Artemis.” Oliver dries his hands with the towel before he folds it over the back of the chair in front of him and leans back against the sink.  
  
Arsenal doesn’t do much of anything to busy himself, either. He stands in the middle of the kitchen, shifting from foot to foot a little.  
  
“Yeah. Her. Your supposed _niece_.” He drones with the same tone.  
  
“She’s someone I took in. Like I took you in.”  
  
Shoulders rising a little, Arsenal’s lip tugs in displeasure but he keeps himself calm, or at least quiet, because he wants to know more about her more than he wants to blow a gasket at Ollie.  
  
“Alright, but _who is she_?” He presses, tilting his head just enough to make Oliver squirm.  
  
“She’s the daughter of Sportsmaster, and Huntress,” Oliver offers, reaching to rub the back of his neck guiltily. It’s clear with that kind of information, he shouldn’t be saying it, but Arsenal’s different and they both know it.  
  
“So is she a spy and you haven’t said shit about it? Or is she-”  
  
“She’s got bad family, but she wants to be a good person. She’s not a _spy_.” Oliver defends his protege, “She wanted to be part of the team, and I covered for her, said she was my niece, and they took her in, let her work with them. She became a real core of that team, and- she’s not a spy, alright? She’s a good kid.”  
  
Arsenal’s brows knit and he picks his arm up to rub at his stump, his hoodie sleeve tied off so he won’t catch the fabric on things.  
  
“You’re so pathetic, Oliver,” he rasps out, voice rough.  
  
Oliver doesn’t answer, and Arsenal doesn’t have to look at him to know he looks like a kicked puppy.  
  
“Your guilt- was it because she reminded you of me? Or did that not even cross your mind since you had that other guy? You just told me her life story-”  
  
He shakes his head, tucking his partial arm against his side as best he can.  
  
“She told me everything, you know. Told me about how you and Roy fought, how you tried looking, how you gave up, how you _grieved_. Roy’s addicted to heroin, you’re a washed out-” Arsenal growls his frustration, cutting himself off.  
  
He has too much anger and hurt bottled up in his chest, muscling his heart out of the way, squeezing his lungs, roiling his stomach. He has so many things he’s upset about, things he’s hurt about, things he wishes were different, things he doesn’t understand, and it all comes out in biting words and remarks meant to gut.  
  
Oliver looks gutted.  
  
Arsenal’s breathing heaves, shoulders shaking.

“Why did you even bother grieving, Ollie? Huh?” He asks. His voice is wet. “You didn’t even know he’d taken me away from you for _years_, Oliver. So why, when I’d been gone so fuckin’ long, did you bother?”  
  
“I needed closure, Arsenal,” Oliver stands his ground, and the change in demeanor from his normal cowering, takes both of them by surprise.  
  
“You needed closure for a kid you didn’t even _realize was gone_! And look, he’s back!” Arsenal slaps his chest, “And making your life fuckin’ miserable all over again!”

Oliver winces, starting to breathe hard too.  
  
“Did you have a funeral for me, Oliver? Did you? Did other people mourn? Did you throw flowers in a hole? On an empty fuckin’ _box_?!”  
  
There’s still no answer, and Arsenal snaps, reaching with the one arm he’s got, grabbing the back of the chair at the kitchen table. It’s wooden, and he moves with a fury, and anger, a _rage_, and turns, slamming it into the fridge. It breaks into pieces, splintering across the floor. The sound of it, the crash, is only punctuated by his own wordless yell.  
  
Panting hard, he stares down at it, then back at Oliver, who stares wide eyed at the display, looking sick.  
  
Good.  
  
Arsenal storms off down the hall, taking the stairs two at a time, and slamming the door shut hard enough he hopes the frame splinters too.  
  
He wants to break more, wants to tear things to pieces-  
  
The feeling of the wooden floor meeting his knees after they’d been cut up two nights before isn’t pleasant, but most feeling rushes out of him as he curls up on the floor at the foot of the bed, heaving dry sobs into his arm.  
  
His stump aches.

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**March 25, 07:21 PST**

  
  
“Can you… can you please watch her for me? Just for a couple of hours?”  
  
The sound of his voice makes Arsenal’s head spin, because for a moment, it sounds an awful lot like a pitched recording of himself, and it makes him do a double take.  
  
Listening harder, he picks up on more of the conversation.  
  
“Roy, you… you know you can stay here, if you need to. If you need the help. You’ve done what you set out to do.”  
  
It’s Dinah’s voice.  
  
Arsenal takes another two steps down the stairs, peeking around the corner to the kitchen below. If Dinah notices he’s watching from on high, she doesn’t look up to acknowledge him.

Roy is standing with her in the kitchen, and there’s a car seat on the table. It’s turned away, he can’t see what’s inside, though, it’s a car seat, so probably an infant.  
  
“I… I know, Dinah. I know. I can’t.”  
  
“He doesn’t blame you, Roy, you have to remember that. Without you, I don’t know how long it would have been until we found him. And he knows that. He knows you worked your ass off to find him. I can’t say for sure, but he’s probably grateful, if he can work out his mess of emotions.”  
  
Roy huffs a laugh, “I know the feeling.”  
  
Of course he does. They’re the same person.  
  
Dinah reaches, setting her hand on his bicep. “If you need the time, and the help, we’re here for you, Roy. Even if he’s here with us now, you still mean the world to us. You both do.”  
  
Roy’s shoulders rise slowly and he takes a deep breath.  
  
“Can you just watch her for a few hours for me, Dinah? I swear I’ll be back to pick her up. I need to go to my meeting and… decompress after.”  
  
Dinah goes quiet but after a few moments, she nods and squeezes his arm gently.  
  
“Don’t worry about it, okay? She’ll be safe and sound here with us when you get back.” Slowly and easily, she has him lean down that inch or two so she can peck a kiss to his forehead. “Don’t be late now.”  
  
Roy nods, turning to the car seat and reaching inside before he disappears out the door.  
  
Dinah steps up to the car seat and rocks it gently, reaching into the bag beside it to take an inventory of what Roy had left her with.  
  
Arsenal doesn’t move.  
  
“You don’t have to, but do you want to come meet her?”  
  
He stiffens, staring down the stairs into the kitchen.  
  
“Who?” He winces just a bit at the sound of his own voice in comparison to Roy’s.  
  
“Lian,” Dinah offers, smiling up at him as she reaches to rock the car seat a little more.  
  
Slowly, carefully, like a spooked animal, Arsenal comes down the stairs to see what and who Dinah is talking about. He keeps his head down, still not entirely sure about Dinah, she’d come after he’d been taken, he doesn’t know her, and peeks into the car seat.  
  
There’s a baby there, obviously, probably only a few months old, asleep with a pacifier in her mouth. She’s got bright red hair.  
  
Arsenal’s hand shakes a little and he clenches his fist to try to stop it.  
  
Whisper quiet, he asks, “Who is she?”  
  
“Lian is Roy’s daughter.”  
  
Jamming his eyes shut, Arsenal can’t stand looking at her. Roy has a _daughter_. His _clone_ has a _child_.  
  
Swallowing hard, his attention snaps to her when she fusses a little and stirs. Her hands are in little mittens with tiny bows.  
  
“What happened?” His voice sounds so strained, he wants to crawl into a hole.  
  
Dinah rocks the car seat a little more so Lian will stay asleep while they talk.

“While searching for you, Roy fell in with a bad crowd. Before, he had a lot of run ins with a villain, Cheshire. After he found out he was a clone, they… got together. They got married. He ended up pregnant with Lian not long after they got married. He doesn’t remember most of it because he spent a lot of that time out of his own head, be it dealing with drugs, or occupied with searching.”  
  
Arsenal’s chest grows tighter and tighter as Dinah explains who this tiny human is. He swallows hard again, and it feels like he’s choking. He can’t breathe.  
  
“She’s… pretty.”  
  
“She is.”  
  
Standing for a few beats more, staring down at the sleeping baby in the car seat, he can’t take it anymore, and darts off back up the stairs to his room.  
  
He sits against the door and the wetness at his eyes startles him. It’s not the angry dry sobs he’s used to so far. It’s… softer.  
  
Tucking his face into his knees, Arsenal let’s silent tears fall, not really sure why they’re coming, or how to stop them.

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**March 25, 18:49 PST**

“I don’t know what to do- I don’t know what to _say_, Dinah. I want to apologize. I want to-” Oliver heaves a sigh.  
  
The floorboards creak and Arsenal can hear Dinah moving closer to Ollie.  
  
“Oliver, you have to think of him, and not yourself. I know that’s hard, right now, you don’t feel good about this, but right now, this isn’t about whether or not he’s angry with you, or whether or not he forgives you. This is about him feeling safe. It’s the most important thing for him right now. The rest will come when the both of you are ready to process what happened.”  
  
A long stretch of silence between the two of them.  
  
“I don’t know if that’s going to happen, pretty bird. I don’t know if he’ll feel safe here. Or anywhere. Not after what happened. I can’t help feel he’s right- he’s justified in being angry with me. I let him down. More than I think you can let anyone down! He should be allowed to be pissed with me.”  
  
“His anger might be justified, because eight years is a long time to be missing, and a long time to be someone’s-” Dinah cuts herself off with a huff.  
  
“He’s angry with everyone right now, baby. He’s going to snap at everyone. That’s something he’s allowed. But blaming you for what happened, his kidnapping and how you had been fooled into taking the red herring, when the entire point _was_ to fool you, is something he might come around to. In time, he might understand what happened was not your fault, or his own.”  
  
The shuffle of bare feet on the wooden floors, soft, the shift of fabric.  
  
“I left him alone for all those years, Dinah,” Ollie’s voice wavers, whisper quiet.  
  
“I know, baby, I know. But he’s here now. And so are you. Give it time. The situation, him, _and_ yourself.”  
  
Something is mumbled, muffled, and Arsenal can’t make it out from where he’s standing.  
  
Dinah lets out a sift breath, “I know, baby. But we have to try to cultivate the best place for him, right now. A home. An understanding environment that he can relax in, that he knows has his best interest at heart.”  
  
“He’s paranoid, Dinah,” Oliver nearly cuts in. His voice sounds wet.  
  
Arsenal’s heart hammers hard in his chest at the word, and at the tone of Ollie’s voice. It may be true, it may be what he’s feeling, but it’s hard to identify when he feels so much all the time lately. He doesn’t feel he has reason to be trusting anyone right now, least of all-  
  
His throat gets thick, his hand shakes.  
  
He doesn’t understand that emotion or reaction anymore than he understands the reasons for most of the other suddens spikes of emotion. He feels like he might cry.  
  
“I know, Oliver. And that’s part of why it’s so important. He’s not in his right mind, and I’m sure he would benefit from therapy, but it’s been _three days_. Give him time. Let him figure out where he wants to start. With you, and with the rest of the world.”  
  
Another stretch of silence.  
  
Arsenal pads barefoot back up the hallway upstairs to his room.

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**March 25, 23:19 PST**

Arsenal washes himself down in the shower, trying not to be sick at the thought of being naked, of the vague memories of the stasis they held him in. He was naked there too, for years, on display for scientists and business men, all looking over him like a resource, like some germ cluster in a petri dish. Forget being a person, a human being with rights and freedoms and a life. Absolutely not. He was barely a thing, a tool, a means to an end.

There’s no way Lex Luthor could be brought to justice in something like this, Arsenal knows. Not only can he buy his way through any trial, but the evidence to support Arsenal in this is an absolute nightmare. What judge and jury would accept the fact that Lex Luthor staged his kidnapping, kept him in an underground facility, right underneath their feet, and then later in Tibet, amputated his arm, _cloned him_, and kept him in cryostasis for eight goddamn years?

If anyone, it would be the Justice League, and as far as Arsenal understands it, most of them aren’t even here. They’re dealing with their own trial on an alien planet.

It figures he’d wake to a nightmare.  
  
A nightmare that he doesn’t have a way out of. There is no waking up from this.

Sitting in the bottom of the shower, all he wants to do is go back to sleep. Bile rises in his throat when he thinks about that wish, and how it had never even really been sleep. That place. It hadn’t even been unconsciousness.  
  
The memories wash through him, of screaming wordless, of endless darkness, a weightlessness and a bone deep chill.

He has to lean half out of the tub to puke in the toilet, and when he’s emptied his already empty stomach of the strings of acid and foam, he curls up in the bottom of the tub, letting the scalding water crash over him, shivering and shuddering.

He can’t get warm.

He’s never going to be warm again.

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**March 26, 08:57 PST**

Arsenal wonders now and again if the rest of the house takes offense to his place in the house they all frequent, and how little he interacts with them in the same ways they interact with each other. More often than not he watches from another room, or, if he’s in the same room, he’s checked out. He’s always listening, hyper vigilance never letting him rest, but he’s such a different kind of entity in the house.

It’s quiet this morning, though. Oliver is working, Dinah is out. He hasn’t seen Artemis, he figures she’s busy with the team. She drops by most mornings lately with that little brown paper bag of pastries. He’s yet to ask her what shop those are from. 

Roy though, is here. And his daughter, Lian, she’s here too.  
  
He watches where she’s sleeping in the bassinet in the living room and the warm sunlight that drags over the wood floors. She seems fine. Babies sleep a lot. Part of him wants to peek in on her, just to be sure she’s breathing, but he doesn’t. 

It’s hard, thinking about her, and who she is, and what she means to him. He has nothing of attachment to her, but with Roy being his clone, he has to wonder if she’s his daughter genetically, or if Roy is different enough from him now that she’s not, and what that would even mean to him if she were. She’s not his physically, and he’s barely seen her once, but since he saw her in the car seat yesterday, he can’t stop thinking about her. She’s a muddy mess of feelings not unlike Roy himself is to Arsenal.  
  
Roy is sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and the heaviest bags under his eyes that Arsenal has seen on anyone. Anyone other than himself, maybe. But that only really proves the point. He keeps running his hands through his hair.  
  
Arsenal approaches slowly, pouring himself a cup of coffee too before he sits down at the table. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have his prosthetic on.  
  
Eyes flick up to watch him, and Arsenal makes eye contact over the top of his cup, watching Roy in return.  
  
Neither of them knows what to say, or how to say what needs to be said, so neither of them says anything.

Eventually Roy shifts in his chair, clearing his throat, “So uh, how’s uh… how’s it going?” Roy bumbles through the simple question.  
  
Arsenal’s brows pinch and he reaches to the lazy susan in the middle of the table to pull the dish for sugar and dumps a bunch of it in his coffee, bypassing the little sugar spoon entirely, before stirring it a little more. He takes a sip and sighs through his nose.  
  
“It’s going, I guess.”  
  
Roy looks back up at him, hand tight on his cup, the other arm draped across the table where his back is arched. Arsenal himself is leaned back in his chair, slouched. Very different stances, but achieving the same goal of distance.  
  
“Heard you broke a chair. And somebody’s face.”  
  
Arsenal’s shoulders get high as he looks away, a scowl drawing his expression tight. “You really think you should be the one lecturing me?”  
  
Huffing a laugh devoid of humor, Roy shrugs his shoulder, tilting his head, “Probably not. Wasn’t lecturing, though.”  
  
“What’re you getting at, then?” Arsenal presses, gaze drifting back slowly to scrutinize Roy, study him up and down.  
  
“Relating, mostly.”  
  
That same sour look stays so stubbornly across his features. The same bones, the same shapes, the same man, but younger, and maybe just a bit softer. It’s clear Roy’s had time with hormones that Arsenal hasn’t, even with Lian considered.  
  
“You were addicted to heroin.”  
  
It comes out almost bitterly, and Arsenal realizes as soon as he said it, it was mostly just to make Roy react, a knife between the ribs that neither of them really needed. He doesn’t let it come across on his face, but he feels bad. He won’t apologize, but that… hadn’t been very nice.  
  
“Still am.” Roy offers, leaning back in his own chair slowly. It creaks as he does.  
  
Confusion more than the scowl now, Arsenal looking him up and down, “You think that’s good for your kid?”  
  
“No. Course not. She’s my pride and joy.” Roy sits, resolute, “But even if I’m not using anymore, I’m an addict. I’ve been in that life, let it control me, sate me, distract me, whatever it was anytime I took it. Not using though, doesn’t mean I’m still not at risk. Could go back to it tonight. Or in a week. Just how it works, now.”  
  
Arsenal looks down at his cup, listening closely to see if he can hear Lian in the other room. He can’t. He doubts she’s awake yet.  
  
“Are you gonna?”  
  
“Gonna go back to it?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Not if I can help it, no.” Roy shakes his head, reaching to rub the back of his neck.  
  
“Is that good enough?” Arsenal stares him down.  
  
Roy looks him over, and Arsenal can feel where his eyes linger. On his jaw, on his collarbone, on his arm. Arsenal’s smaller, thinner than Roy, maybe thinner than Roy remembers being at this age, regardless of if those memories aren’t quite his in the same way. And his missing arm. He wonders what Roy thinks about that, too. Does he blame himself? Does he blame Luthor?  
  
Arsenal can bet he blames himself.  
  
He blames himself for Roy’s heroin addiction, and he can’t imagine that Roy doesn’t blame himself for the hell Arsenal went through. It’s just not in them, a man like them, not to shoulder the hurt.  
  
“No.” Roy ducks his head this time, dropping his gaze to the swirls and knots of the wooden table under his hands. Both his hands. He looks at them the same way he looks at a lot of things. With a deep sadness, the kind that squeezes your lungs and makes existence feel like drowning.  
  
“Better remember that.”  
  
Looking back up at the young man sitting at the end of the table from him, Arsenal’s expression is hard, stubborn, but not without concern. It’s incredible how much the two of them can see in each other, can read in the lines of their bodies. Neither of them would imagine they’d know themselves well enough, that when seeing it, they could read themselves so accurately.  
  
Of course neither of them has voiced it, either, but it’s there. There’s an understanding.  
  
They don’t talk about Tibet. Or the years locked away. The time spent searching endlessly.  
  
And they especially don’t talk about the time spent in the darkness. They were both in darkness. Arsenal’s was perhaps a little more literal, but Roy’s was no less real.

In the end, maybe his wording hadn’t been the best. They sound particularly like they shove blame squarely onto Roy’s shoulders, and if he’s an addict, he can’t care for his daughter, but it’s not what Arsenal means. He wants Roy to be able to be the best man he can for her, because that’s what being a parent is, he thinks. He wouldn’t know firsthand, or even secondhand, really. He doesn’t remember his own parents well, and his relationship with Oliver has been rocky at best. But as a hero, and as a decent person, he thinks that’s how it should go.  
  
He hopes that Roy understands his weird way of thinking, and hopes that he thinks in that same weird way.

“What’s uh-” Arsenal starts, trying to squash down the feeling, “What’s up with Artemis?”  
  
Roy looks up at him, blinking a little before he squints, brows knitting, “What do you mean what’s up with her?”  
  
“Like,” he shifts uncomfortably in his seat, “Who is she? Oliver said she’s Sportsmaster and Huntress’ daughter. She said she was his niece.”  
  
“She’s their daughter, yeah. She wanted to be a good guy, so Ollie stepped up. She was doing vigilante shit for a while, trying to do the right thing despite her shitty parentage. I guess he had a talk with her. She’s on the team.”  
  
“And she’s not a spy?” Arsenal asks, gripping his mug hard.  
  
Roy scoffs a laugh, shaking his head, “She’s not a spy, no. I think she’s the best damned person on that team, if I’m honest. There was…” he shifts a little in his seat too, like Arsenal tends to, “There was a mole in the team for a while, someone leaking information, and I didn’t work with the team for a long time, but I did then, so I could figure out who the mole was. I thought it was her for a long time.”  
  
It’s funny how they both think that way.

“Who was it?” Arsenal asks, brows furrowed a bit to watch Roy.  
  
A tight, humorless smile stretches across his face, “Me.”

“That’s…” Arsenal struggles to find the right word for it.  
  
“A fuckin’ nightmare? Sure was.”  
  
Looking back up at him, Arsenal watches his body language, and how it has changed through the course of their conversation. Not much, if Arsenal is honest. Nothing they’ve talked about over coffee has been anything good. And he has to wonder if Roy can even let his guard down around Arsenal at all at this point. He can’t point fingers though, because he hasn’t relaxed since he sat down either. They’ve both sat rigid.  
  
Arsenal wonders if that will ever change between them.

“It was your brainwashing, wasn’t it?”  
  
Roy nods a little, barely moving his head.  
  
Sipping off his own coffee, Arsenal’s fingers stay curled around the warm mug. “What do you think the chances are that they left me with some sleeper soldier shit?”  
  
Silence stretches between them while Roy clearly gives it thought, lips pursed and face drawn tight. He clearly doesn’t like the thought of a very valid question.  
  
“I… don’t know. You could talk with M’gann, see if she can clear your mind like she did mine.”  
  
“You trust that?” Arsenal asks, sipping his drink again, “You trust her to have _actually_ done that? Properly?”  
  
Again, Roy looks tight and upset. Not angry, or sad, but not happy.  
  
He doesn’t say anything, even after a few moments of silence. Arsenal can only really deduce that he isn’t sure himself.

“You don’t trust easy, do you?” Roy asks, voice a little softer. “You sound paranoid.”  
  
There’s that word again.  
  
Arsenal scoffs, showing his teeth in a smile devoid of humor, “Can you blame me?”  
  
“No, I guess not. But… I know these people, I’ve seen them live their lives. M’gann’s not the most trustworthy, she makes some shit decisions sometimes, but she’s always looking out for her friends. Which I was. Am. I don’t know. And if she hadn’t been trusted to do that, I think Martian Manhunter would have done it. They trusted her, so, at the time, I guess I didn’t really see a reason not to trust her.”  
  
“You trust her now?” Arsenal asks, swirling the dregs of his coffee in the bottom of his cup. “You trust any of them?”  
  
Roy squeezes his own arms a little, posture closed off and perhaps a little defensive. He doesn’t answer. Arsenal can’t really tell what he’s thinking, because while they might stem from the same place, they’re not the same person. The things he’s experienced in his life, in the years since their memory diverges, make him who he is independent from Arsenal, and Arsenal from him.

And even still, Arsenal wonders if he’s thinking more on just how badly this entire situation had to have gone sideways for Arsenal to be mistrusting of every single person he’s spoken to since he’s been rescued, and maybe, wondering if it had been good to find him at all.  
  
But maybe that’s that infamous paranoia everyone keeps pointing out.

A whine from the other room has Roy on his feet without a moment’s hesitation.  
  
Arsenal rinses his own cup in the sink and heads back to the stairs up to his room. He stops at the bottom though, watching into the living room. Roy’s back is to him, and Lian is tucked against his shoulder, face turned into his neck. Her little fists are closed around his shirt. He’s rubbing her back, making soft shushing noises.  
  
He stays to watch for a few moments before darting up the stairs.

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**March 27, 13:42 PST**

There comes a time when the house is too quiet, and he’s been looking at the same walls, and listening to the same creaking floorboards, for too long for his liking. He wants to see the city, feel the sun on his face, and breathe. The house isn’t the place for that.  
  
So he takes off. Prosthetic on, a hoodie with a jacket over it. It keeps him warm, even if it’s not particularly cold out. The wind against his ears is enough to put him on edge when it whips through the buildings.  
  
The city isn’t quite what he remembers. That’s to be expected though, he guesses. It’s been quite a few years. There’s new construction- there was always construction- and the old construction is finished. Star doesn’t get as riddled as cities like Metropolis and Gotham, but she sees her fair share of shit.  
  
Oliver’s rogues are just all old dudes like him.

Stopping at the stoplight, Arsenal looks up and down the street. He knows where he is, he knows where the stores are, but some are closed, some are different. It’s surreal. It doesn’t make him feel very good. It only serves to make him feel even more out of place in the place he once called home.  
  
He pulls the collar of his jacket up a little higher.  
  
“Hey baby, you look lost.”  
  
Arsenal half turns but keeps walking, looking over the man he passed, leaning on the corner of an alleyway.  
  
He scoffs a snarl and shows him his teeth, a clear gesture to get bent.  
  
“Don’t be like that!” A pause, “Hey! You know Roy?”  
  
Slowing up a little, Arsenal turns and looks at him, and the man pulls his cigarette away from his mouth. He looks like some guy. He’s a bigger guy, wide shoulders, a pierced eyebrow, short shaved hair.  
  
“Ey, Ronnie, I didn’t know Harper had a little sist-”  
  
His words are cut off with a sharp choking sound when Arsenal’s hand slams into his windpipe, and the wind leaves him in a rush when his body crashes into the pavement after he sweeps his legs after.  
  
“Keep runnin’ your smart mouth, and your balls are gonna be rattlin’ around in your thick skull with the last two braincells,” Arsenal says quietly, leaning over the man now crumpled on the ground.  
  
He just stares up at him, trying to catch his break, still coughing and sputtering.  
  
“Jesus, Scott!”  
  
Ronnie, who he called from the alleyway, watches in awe, hands up. Arsenal glances up to see him and Ronnie shrinks back a little, “No trouble, take it easy.”  
  
“How do you two know Roy?”  
  
Arsenal already has a sinking suspicion he knows, but he’d rather they said it.  
  
He leans over the first guy, Scott, “Cat got your tongue?”  
  
Scott wheezes and glares at him, pushing himself to sit up, “Nasty little bitch.”  
  
“I really am gonna punt your nuts into your throat if you don’t keep your mouth shut, man.” He makes a point of tapping his toe so they know they’re steel toed, too.  
  
Arsenal points at Ronnie instead, “You look like you’ve got the sense between the two of you- how do you know Roy?”  
  
Ronnie shifts a little, looking like he might just bolt instead, “We hang out, chill- he flaked out on us hard. Been a while since we seen him.”  
  
Taking another step towards Scott to keep him down, Arsenal looks them both over, “Stay away from Roy, you hear me? Don’t talk to him. Don’t call him. I don’t wanna see or hear about you douchebags having anything to do with Roy.” Another step, “You hear me?”

The two of them look to each other, a slight frantic look in their eyes, then Scott scrambles up off the pavement and the two bolt.  
  
Arsenal calls down the alleyway, “And quit fuckin’ cat callin, you scumbags!”  
  
Shrugging his shoulder hard, he starts back up the road the way he’d been headed.  
  
Losers.

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**March 27, 14:19 PST**

“I don’t think it’d be a bad idea. If you’re comfortable with it, that is.” Oliver offers, sliding a folder into the filing cabinet under his desk.

“Where’s the nearest, uh…” Arsenal trails off, looking over some of his little knick knacks on the shelf. Looking over his shoulder, “What are they called?”

“The zetas?”  
  
“Those. Where’s the nearest zeta?”  
  
“The Quiver,” Ollie says without missing a beat.  
  
Blinking quickly, brows knit, Arsenal half turns to look at him still sitting at the desk, his expression a tug between bemusement and exasperation, “The _Quiver_?”  
  
Glancing up at him, Ollie grins sheepishly, his face going red, “What? It’s a good name!”  
  
“Who came up with that?” Arsenal shakes his head.  
  
“It’s a long story,” Oliver waves him off, clearly embarrassed. “That’ll be your best bet, though.”  
  
“You don’t think they’re gonna mind me just… dropping in like that? Unannounced?”

“Would you rather make sure and call ahead?”  
  
Arsenal shifts from foot to foot before shaking his head, “No, it’ll be fine. She’ll be there, right?”  
  
“Mhm,” Oliver hums, pulling out a different folder and opening it across his desk, “She’s been training some of the newer members of the team. Like Dinah used to.”  
  
He doesn’t answer for a long moment until Oliver looks back up at him and sees that he staring at the floor, kind of spacing out. He’s thinking. He’ll get caught up in it and upset himself if Ollie doesn’t interject. Slowly, he’s learning some of Arsenal’s tells.  
  
“Are you worried about having never trained with her yourself or the fact that you simply don’t know her to begin with?”  
  
Arsenal’s eyes raise and catch his old mentor’s and he shrugs his shoulder. He watches Ollie for a moment before he coughs to clear his throat, “I better get goin’, Ollie. I’ll be back after.”  
  
Oliver doesn’t stop him, but hums gently when he turns for the door, “Alright, Arsenal.” He sounds like he might have more to say, but he doesn’t.

Putting on his prosthetic and tugging the sleeves of his hoodie and jacket down over it, he grabs up his bag and heads for the door. Dinah catches him before he makes it all the way, smiling just a little, “Good morning, Arsenal. You headed out?”  
  
He stops short and looks her over, shifting. Her eyes on him make him nervous. He shifts his bag, “Gonna go catch Artemis.”  
  
He doesn’t stick around to hear what she says after that, darting out the door.  
  
It’s a quick jog a block over cutting through a parking garage, and father still through a few alleys until he finds the dead end he’s looking for, shifting his bag again before he leans in against the bricks, opening his eyes wide so the hidden scanner can pick up his retinas.  
  
The automated voice is quiet, but it’s always kind of sounded like Oliver to him.  
  
“Recognized: Red Arrow.”  
  
Rolling his eyes, he scoffs, “Figures they haven’t fixed it yet.”  
  
The bricks grind and the false wall slides open to let him into the… the _Quiver_, he guesses. What a dumb name.  
  
He’s impressed the zeta’s working again already after he left a grenade to put it out of commission the last time he was here. Arsenal supposes they _do_ use them a lot, so it’s better they’re working rather than having them down.

Wasting no time debating shit, he keys the pad like Ollie told him, the coordinates scribbled in pen on his wrist, and the zeta spins to life. He shifts his bag again, flexing his prosthetic fingers a little before he steps up to the platform.

“Recognized: Red Arrow, B06,” the woman’s voice announces his departure, and it’s a weird sensation that he isn’t sure he likes much, but it’s a pulling and crushing feeling all at once, like a roller coaster with his eyes shut, or a free fall.

* * *

**JUMP CITY**

**March 28, 14:42 PST**

  
  
But before it really digs into his stomach, he’s there, finishing the step he’d started in Star City in a phone booth with a broken window in an alleyway. He puts his hand up against the metal to ground himself, and catch his breath. It’s just something he’s going to have to get used to if he’s gonna be using them more often.  
  
Stepping out of the phone booth, he closes the door behind him and trudges out to the sidewalk. Glancing around, it’s not so bad here. Not Star, but Jump’s nothing to scoff at. It’s a nice enough city.  
  
“Three blocks up, hang a right, behind the bicycle shop, up the stairs,” Arsenal instructs himself under his breath before he starts off. 

He keeps an eye out, at the people who live in this city, what they eye up, what they flinch from. He gets a decent idea while he walks, and after ducking into the alley and skirting around the back of the bicycle shop, he finds what he’s looking for. A rickety old set of stairs up to a second floor above the shop- a shop he’s pretty sure is just a front for the safehouse upstairs.  
  
Coming up the stairs, he lifts a hand to knock, but pauses to listen for sounds inside.  
  
Nothing.  
  
Arsenal follows through and knocks anyway, the same rhythm Ollie had told him before he left. With Mount Justice having been destroyed by Kaldur and his lackeys, a portion of their team kidnapped, and all hell breaking loose, at the very least it’s good to have a code in place. An extra layer of minimal security right now is all they can really scrape together, but it’s enough.

He waits a few beats, listening to the cars on the road on the other side of the building, shifting as he watches down the stairs and up the alleyway at the occasional person walk by. Not the most secure, but he supposes beggars can’t be choosers.

The door cracks and he turns to look, but doesn’t snap his attention like he feels, a conscious effort not to startle the person on the other side of the door. He doesn’t recognize this person, but he supposes he might not know everyone on the team.

She’s got white hair, show white, and she squints at him, only half of her face showing past the door.  
  
“Can I help you?”  
  
Her tone is clipped and guarded. Her lips turn down as she looks him over. Arsenal shifts a little before he squares himself.  
  
“I was looking for Artemis. I need to talk to her.”  
  
“And who do you think _you are_, little man?”  
  
She’s not that much taller than he is, and her tone is already starting to grate on him.  
  
“Is she here or not?”  
  
With a scoff, the woman turns from the door, letting it open and Arsenal steps up to push inside. She closes it behind them and locks the four different locks to keep it closed. Nobody gets in or out in a timely manner, obviously.

When she steps past him farther into the building, she glances over her shoulder at him and he can see now she’s got a dark eye patch over one eye, and most of her hair is pulled back into a ponytail.  
  
She gestures with one hand, “She’s in there, probably still fighting with that dickhead.”  
  
Arsenal’s brows knit and he nods once before he rounds the corner to the other room, but stops short at the sound of voices, standing on the other side of the wall.  
  
“Artemis, why do we have to have this fight every damn time?”

“I don’t know, Wally, why do you keep picking it?”

“We agreed to quit the hero life, college, a house- we were _out_, Artemis. And now? He blew up the base! You were _in_ the explosion! You could have _died_!”

“Everything was taken care of, Wally, and you know it. You know things were handled.”

“But what if they weren’t? This is the same shit Dick fed me. What if it hadn’t been alright?”

“Are you even listening to yourself?” Artemis snaps back, clearly getting sick of a fight that’s likely happened more than once at this point. “Every single time we left that base, every day that we put on the masks… Every single day and every _damn_ mission was another opportunity, another chance we wouldn’t make it back home. But we’re good at our jobs, Wally, and we always have been, and right now, they need us. They need all the help they can get and I’m there.”  
  
She pauses, but it’s only for a moment, and the tone she uses is seething, “What’re _you_ fuckin’ doing?”  
  
Her words are punctuated by an audible shove.  
  
Silence stretches and he almost considers stepping around the corner, but he has a little more tact than that.  
  
“If that’s how it’s gonna be, maybe it’s better you’re here.” Wally whispers, and it’s a little hard for Arsenal to catch, it’s so quiet.  
  
The wind rushes past him with a blur across his vision and Artemis yells, “That’s right, run away again, you _coward_!”  
  
Arsenal stays pressed to the wall out of sight and listens to her breathe hard. Whatever that was, was definitely something he didn’t want to stumble into unprompted.

He takes a few moments to collect himself before he scoots up a little and turns to walk with heavy, purposefully loud footsteps, letting his boots fall hard on the wooden floor til he comes around the corner, hands shoved in his pockets.  
  
“Man, did you see that?” He thumbs over his shoulder, “I came in and there was this _blur_!”  
  
Artemis’ face is hard when she looks up at him, red on her cheeks and under her eyes. Not like crying, like anger. She connects the dots and the anger subsides a little.  
  
“It was Wally. He ran off.”  
  
“Wally?” Arsenal asks, feigning mild innocence. She didn’t know him before, she doesn’t know what he does and doesn’t know. He knows _of_ Wally, even if he doesn’t know him personally. He was taken before the sidekicks got together.  
  
“He’s The Flash’s protege. Or, he was. He stopped doing hero work a while ago.”  
  
She tugs her ponytail loose before tying it back up tight, straightening up and rolling her shoulders.  
  
Arsenal shifts from foot to foot, moving his bag on his shoulder a little, “Are you uh- are you alright? You look… fed up.”  
  
“I’ve about had it with his bullshit. He only thinks about himself.” Artemis snaps, watching after where Wally had run off. “We’re dating, we have been for years. I… I agreed to get out of the business with him when he wanted out, we enrolled in college, got a house, all the domestic shit. But- shit’s been getting worse around here, Arsenal, and they need us and our help now more than ever. And he’s-”  
  
She gestures hard, heaving another sigh, propping up her elbow to pinch the bridge of her nose and rub her eyes.  
  
“Sounds like a dickhead,” Arsenal mutters, using the other woman’s word. It fits.  
  
“I know he has a point, this life _is_ dangerous, but he’s not thinking about the bigger picture. I got into this to help people. I wanted nothing more than to help people. And now when people need me, he’s trying to guilt me into rolling over and showing my belly and hoping they don’t gut me after they gut everyone else because I wasn’t there to keep them safe? I don’t fuckin’ think so, buster.”  
  
Arsenal tries not to snicker at her use of ‘buster’. He wonders where she picked up that kind of phrasing, even when this irritated.  
  
“You’re… doing good. You’re helping people, even when it’s dangerous. He should respect that. It’s why you started in the first place, right?”  
  
Artemis shakes her head slowly, “With him, sometimes I don’t know.”  
  
Giving a little shrug, Arsenal isn’t totally sure himself. He didn’t know Wally that well, and what he does remember is that he staged the same incident that made Barry Allen into The Flash and they’d been working together keeping Central City safe.

She turns to him and waves her hand, “Whatever, that’s all shit- did you want something, Arsenal?”  
  
Blinking quickly, he looks up at her, “Oh, shit, yeah. I dropped by to… see how things are going, I guess? I heard about what happened at Mt. Justice, heard you were involved. Hadn’t seen you around Ollie’s place in a while so I figured I’d drop by.”  
  
“You’re checking up on me?” Artemis asks, but she doesn’t look or sound defensive. She sounds amused, and there’s a small smile on her face.  
  
“I mean- I wouldn’t- you and Roy are like, the only people I know that are- it’s-”  
  
Arsenal stumbles over his words, cutting himself off and starting multiple sentences to try to explain feelings he doesn’t have words for, and motivations he can’t quite place.  
  
“It’s real considerate of you, kid.”  
  
Artemis reaches and ruffles his hair a little and he swats her hand away, “Alright! You don’t have to be patronizing!”  
  
She laughs and despite her teasing, her laugh loosens something tight in his chest. His shoulders relax just a fraction.  
  
“Is there anything I can do to help out?” Arsenal asks gently.  
  
“Hm?” Artemis reaches to scrub her mouth and jaw to think, “I don’t think right now, no. There’s only a handful of us who aren’t currently kidnapped or even in commission right now. Things aren’t looking great, but we’re still working out plans to try to make sure we can get everyone back.”

Arsenal nods a little, “Well, who do we have to work with right now?”  
  
“Right now, it’s currently Guardian, Bumblebee, Nightwing, Miss Martian, Zatanna, and myself.”  
  
Thumbing over his shoulder towards the rest of the building, “So who’s that?”  
  
Artemis looks up, but doesn’t see who he’s pointing to and thinks for a moment, “Oh, the woman who answered the door?”  
  
“Yeah, white hair, eye patch?” He closes one eye with a squint to show her what he means.  
  
She chuckles, “That’s Rose. She’s not part of the team.”

“Is she even a hero? Or just… your roommate?”  
  
Playing catch up is frustrating, it’s a game of twenty questions when he doesn’t want to have to be asking any to know. But that’s just the hand he’s been dealt in a card game where everyone else is cheating.  
  
“She’s not my roommate. She’s just an old friend. And she’s not a hero. This is her dad’s safehouse. She’s letting us use it as a base until we can find something better after Kaldur blew up Mt. Justice.”

Artemis steps past him, nodding with her head for him to follow her. He falls in line behind her, lips pursed. The tense air around an old teammate turned rogue destroying the only semblance of safety they’d cultivated… Arsenal thinks better of it and keeps his mouth shut.  
  
“The two pump chump beat it?” Rose asks from the couch, her feet up on the coffee table.  
  
Artemis snickers at the nickname, as does Arsenal with a duck of his head to try to stifle it. She reaches over the couch into the bag of cheese balls Rose has next to her hip and grabs a handful before she rounds around the couch to sit down on the couch opposite Rose, “He ran off again.”  
  
She drops cheese balls in her mouth and Arsenal steps around the couch to sit down in the chair, a little slower, not quite sure if it’s rude. His anxiety and fight or flight crawl up the back of his neck at the social situation with someone he doesn’t know.  
  
Rose eyes him, her gaze hard.  
  
“So who’s the pipsqueak?”  
  
Again with the size thing. He’s not _that_ small.  
  
“This is Arsenal. He’s…” Artemis stops before her brows knit, “Complicated?”  
  
Rose quirks a brow, “Complicated?” She sits up, arms against her knees to drag a scrutinizing eye.  
  
Arsenal snarls just a little, staring her down.  
  
“He looks like Red.”

Artemis’ lips purse and her eyebrows raise, “That’d be the complication, yep.”

“Roy’s a clone of me.”  
  
Rose stares for a good long moment, still studying him. What a weirdo. She shrugs a shoulder, sitting back hard and going back to her cheese balls, “Looks like it. That’s not one you hear every day.”

Arsenal doesn’t really feel like telling her more than that though, and doesn’t. He doesn’t owe anyone anything. Artemis sees that he’s not about to let more go and she doesn’t either. His privacy is his decision, and it’s not up to her to go telling his life story.  
  
The three sit in silence, the ladies snacking, and Arsenal staring at a crack in one of the baseboards. It’s only after a long stretch of silence does Rose finally break it with a slap to the arm of the couch.  
  
“Alright, as much of a riot we’re having, I gotta head out.”  
  
She stands up, closing up the bag of cheese puffs as she carries it back into the kitchen. Artemis calls over the back of the couch, “Work with your dad?”  
  
“Nah, he’s busy with a job in Bialya or something.” She shrugs and grabs her jacket off the hook by the door before she starts to undo the locks on the door again. She must have locked them after Wally left. She calls back over her shoulder, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Artemis only answers with a sharp laugh. Arsenal has a feeling Rose would do a lot.

She shakes her head after she hears the door and gets up from the couch to go and lock it up behind Rose. Arsenal stays seated, shoulders high, hands in his pockets. Her hand lingers on the door when she looks back at him. He avoids his eye when she catches his.  
  
Coming back into the room, her voice is a little quieter without Rose here, “Did you really come all the way from Star just to check on me, Arsenal?”  
  
Taking his hands out of his pockets, he picks at the edge of the metal plating on his prosthetic, “I told you when I got here I was making sure you were… safe and all that. After the Mt. Justice thing.”  
  
“That’s really sweet of you, but you could have called.”

Glancing up at her, his brows knit a little before he huffs, slumping a little more. His jaw is tight, and as she watches him, his face gets redder and redder.  
  
Artemis’ face pulls into a confused smile, “Is everything alright?”  
  
Arsenal gets up, grabbing his bag off the floor, and pulls it onto his shoulder before he winds around the couch to head back for the door, “Yeah, it’s all good- I gotta go, Artemis. It’s- it’s nice to see you’re doin’ alright.”  
  
She doesn’t say anything for a few long moments but sees him to the door. He starts down the stairs outside and she clears her throat, “Arsenal?”  
  
Stopping, he glances over his shoulder, humming, “Yeah?”  
  
“I appreciate it.”  
  
Ducking his head a little, he nods, giving her a weak smile, “No problem. You should uh- yknow- call if you guys need anything? I wasn’t a sidekick for years for nothing. If you need the manpower, you know where to find me.”  
  
Leaning on the doorframe, Artemis smiles something warmer and more genuine than his own somewhat sheepish expression, but she doesn’t say anything, just smiles.  
  
Arsenal takes his leave and once out of sight, sprints to the zeta where he locks himself in the booth and breathes heavy for a minute, his face in his hands.

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**March 28, 07:27 PST**

  
  
“I know, baby girl, I know,” Roy’s voice comes with the shrill cry of a baby, through the door. Arsenal’s hands still where he’s making himself a cup of coffee, turning towards the sound of the noise.  
  
Roy sees him too, and stops, but Lian, in her carseat, cries on.  
  
Arsenal’s brows knit and he looks the two of them over. Roy sets her carseat on the table and rocks her carseat, trying to shush her gently, telling her it’s alright now. Shifting from foot to foot, thoroughly distracted from making his coffee, Arsenal isn’t sure if he should speak up or not, and if he did, what he should say.  
  
Setting her diaper bag on the table too, Roy sighs, reaching in to unbuckle her to scoop her out of the carseat and cradle her against his shoulder, rubbing and patting her back.  
  
The more intimate act between father and daughter is enough to make Arsenal look away, and almost, leave the kitchen with his coffee half finished. He doesn’t though, but his hand does shake a little. He swallows hard at the sound of her pitiful noises dying down.  
  
“Sorry, man. The storm keeps startling her,” Roy explains, finally getting her to quiet down a little.  
  
Shaking his head a little, Arsenal shrugs it off, “Nah, it’s- it’s fine, man.” He pauses a moment and glances over. He can see her red face, streaked with tears as she hiccups a little. “Is she okay?”  
  
Roy gives him a little smile, “She’ll be alright.”  
  
Arsenal finishes his coffee and Roy glances at the time before looking to Arsenal, “Are Dinah or Ollie home?”  
  
He shakes his head, “Nah, they had shit to do at like, four this morning. Seemed urgent.”  
  
Roy rocks her against his shoulder, cursing under his breath a little, “I… I got somethin’ I gotta do-”  
  
“Your meeting.” Arsenal interjects.  
  
He freezes a little, but rubs her back, “Yeah. Yeah, I gotta get to my meeting. Dinah and Ollie usually keep an eye on her for me when I go but if they’re not here-”  
  
“I’ll keep an eye on her,” he offers.  
  
Looking him over, Roy’s face twists a little, “I… I can’t ask you to do that, Arsenal. I’m sure nobody’s gonna mind if I take her in.”  
  
“You wanna take her back out in the rain and have her crying again when the thunder scares her? How hard can it be?”  
  
Roy glances at her against his shoulder and draws a deep breath before he lets it out, and Arsenal can hear it shakes a little.  
  
“Alright,” he starts, and honestly Arsenal’s a little shocked he agreed. “I already fed her this morning, she’ll probably nap if the thunder doesn’t keep scaring her. Not a lot to do for her but maybe turn on the tv to try to drown it out and rock her carseat a little, talk to her, reassure her-”  
  
“You’re gonna be late, man,” Arsenal points out, “I’ll keep an eye on her.”  
  
Pulling her away from his shoulder, Roy heaves a sigh and gently sets her in her carseat and buckles it back up before tucking her blanket in around her a little.  
  
“I’ll be back after my meeting, baby girl.”  
  
She wiggles enough to rock her carseat and grunts at him and he smiles so soft, like he might cry. Arsenal doesn’t know if he’s ever looked at something with that kind of tenderness before. Maybe it’s just the bond from a father and child. He shifts a little, sipping his coffee.  
  
Roy starts, “Right! I’ll be back, it’s only an hour and the drive across town. Thanks, Arsenal. Call me if you need something, my number’s on the fridge.”  
  
“Yeah, don’t worry about it, man. Stay dry.”  
  
He gets a scoff of a laugh before Roy’s headed back out into the storm to get to his meeting. Slowly, Arsenal steps around the table to look into the carseat at her. She’s kicking her legs and sucking on her fist, eyes still a little puffy, but bright and curious.  
  
The same loosening feeling in his chest catches him off guard and he has to set his cup down when his hand shakes a little too much.  
  
Swallowing hard, he looks her over again. Lian. He wonders who’s idea her name was.  
  
Thunder crashes overhead and she startles, face scrunching up like she’s about to cry. Arsenal hums, reaching with the one hand he’s got to wiggle her foot a little, voice soft, “Hey, it’s alright kiddo.”  
  
Lian doesn’t cry, but her face stays scrunched for a moment. She relaxes a little when she sees Arsenal’s face better and he smiles a little for her, trying to keep her calm.  
  
“I get scared sometimes too, it’s okay.”

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**March 28, 09:26 PST**

  
  
The door opens and closes again and Arsenal looks up from where he’s watching the news and dozing off a little. Lian is in her carseat in front of him, dead asleep.  
  
Roy is sopping wet, hair sticking to him, dripping a little as he stands in the entryway at the front door. Arsenal stifled a snicker, hiding his smirk behind his hand.  
  
“Laugh it up,” Roy warns, shrugging his jacket off, “How is she?”  
  
“Asleep,” Arsenal smiles a little, “I turned on the news and she was gone.”  
  
Shaking his head in return, Roy comes walks through the house and comes back with a towel, drying off his hair, “Figures.”  
  
“She didn’t cry much, either. She was alright.”  
  
Roy sits down with a huff, looking into her carseat with that same soft expression, “Good. She tired herself out crying about it. Sleeping through it’s better.”  
  
“Still pouring?” Arsenal asks, gesturing to how wet he is.  
  
He rolls his eyes, “Had to park two blocks down. Still raining.”  
  
“Figures.”  
  
The two chuckle about it, and the news, unfortunately, doesn’t bring any insight on whatever it was Oliver and Dinah had to run off to on such short notice so early this morning. Arsenal isn’t sure if he should be worried or not. He knows they’re capable of holding their own, but it’d be nice to know.

“Hey Roy?”  
  
“Hm?” He looks up from where he’s clearly zoned out after what was probably a fairly emotionally taxing morning.  
  
“Would you train me? Back up to par? I wanna get back to work, like I used to. Whatever’s happening with Mount Justice and the team and Artemis- I wanna be able to help.”  
  
A silence stretches between them while Roy considers things.  
  
“I mean, I could, yeah. I’m a little rusty too. It’s been a while since I did anything major. But I could help you shake off some of _your_ rust.”  
  
He glances sideways at Arsenal before asking, “Are you healthy enough for it?”  
  
Arsenal shifts a little, pulling the blanket he’d spread over his legs a little closer, “Healthy enough.”  
  
He knows Roy means well. After he’d been rescued, he’d been fairly seriously atrophied from just how long he’d been in cryostasis. He has trouble catching his breath sometimes still. But that kind of thing won’t get better unless he works on it.  
  
“Alright,” Roy says quietly, reaching to rock Lian’s carseat, “We can start whenever you’re ready. I’m not doing anything today.”  
  
A smile tugs at his lips as he looks Roy over, and Roy returns the look.

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**March 29, 08:49 PST**

  
  
“You’ve got a good basis-”  
  
“No shit!” Arsenal growls, rolling himself and Roy over so he can push off and lunge away, reaching to draw another arrow. Before he can nock it, Roy’s nocked and shot one, shooting it out of his hand. He snarls a little at him before rolling behind one of the walls for cover, pulling and nocking another arrow.  
  
He half draws it before coming out of cover to shoot, and Roy has another ready. They collide in the air and Arsenal cusses, ducking back against the wall. They’re both smattered with smears of paint from the tips of the arrows, but Arsenal clearly has paint on him than Roy does.

“You know,” Arsenal calls from behind cover, “Backhanded compliments about the same mentorship we both remember aren’t gonna get you anywhere, Roy.”  
  
Roy comes over the wall suddenly, and Arsenal is ready for him. The arrow in hand, never intended to be used in the bow, gets slammed like a knife right into Roy’s ribs. Roy stumbles, reaching to feel where Arsenal got him, his hand coming away red with paint.  
  
“That was a kill shot.”  
  
“Between the ribs, up into the heart,” Arsenal grins a little. There’s a fire in his eyes.  
  
Roy’s posture relaxes a little, his shoulders slumping from the action and training, “You can’t go for kill shots, Arsenal.”  
  
Brows knit, Arsenal groans hard, “This again-”  
  
“Yeah, _this_ again. I know you’ve got a lot to work through, but we’re not here to murder people, Arsenal. No matter what it is they’re doing.”  
  
“Do you really believe that, Roy? That no one you’ve gone against would have better off been dead? That killing is never the answer to _some_ of these problems?” Arsenal stands up, walking towards him, gesturing, “You got knocked up by an _assassin_!” 

Roy bares his teeth a little in the same way Arsenal does when he gets upset about things, “Don’t you bring Lian into this, Arsenal. That’s not fair and that’s _not_ what any of this is about. If you’re gonna be working with the team again, you can’t go for kill shots. They’ll never let you work with them if you _kill_ somebody. I don’t care if it’s League of Assassins, or Luthor himself. If you’re working with them, it’s out of the question.”

Arsenal growls in frustration and throws his bow down, gravel scattering in the impact.  
  
“I never said it’s not the answer. Sometimes it’s the only answer, sometimes you can’t avoid it, but if you’re working with the team, it’s a hard stop. Especially when you’re reporting to Nightwing.”

“Am I… interrupting?” Artemis’ voice comes from the edge of the building.  
  
The two of them look to see her sitting on the edge of the wall overlooking the street, eyebrows raised. She thumbs over her shoulder, “I can leave and come back.”  
  
Roy shakes his head, “No, it’s fine. We were just training, trying to get Arsenal’s stamina back up.”  
  
“You guys really don’t kill people?” Arsenal asks, looking to Artemis for answers. “The team.”  
  
Artemis hops down off the wall, bringing over the brown paper bag she’s holding. She hands it over to Roy who opens it and smiles, wiping his hand off before reaching in for a still warm pastry.  
  
“We try not to, no. With Nightwing the head of the team, and him reporting directly to Batman, and Batman being an ‘absolutely no questions asked don’t kill anybody’ kind of guy, we do everything we can to make sure nobody dies.”

Roy hands the bag to Artemis, leaning on the wall. She pulls out her own, and hands it to Arsenal to dig through for this morning’s breakfast. He doesn’t, though, but only because he feels his stomach trying to crawl up his throat.  
  
“Are you really thinking about coming to the team full time, Arsenal?” Artemis asks gently, peeling the paper away from her muffin.  
  
“I was thinking about it.” He won’t make eye contact with her.

“Then you’re gonna have to be mindful of that kinda thing, yeah. Some people deserve it for the shit they do, but it’s the quickest way to get suspended from the team,” Artemis explains.  
  
“Shithead decided to call Jade into question arguing,” Roy grumbles.  
  
“Oh, like you haven’t gone for a real low blow to knock someone off guard, Roy,” Artemis returns it with a little venom.  
  
He sneers a little before going back to his danish. Artemis shakes her head.  
  
“You two… Don’t go for low blows,” she points at Arsenal, “And be more considerate,” she points at Roy. “You both have a lot of shit to work through and I’m not gonna be playing therapist. If you need counselling, Dinah’s downstairs.”

Arsenal waves her off, taking the brown bag with him when he goes to sit by the edge of the roof and pull a cigarette out.  
  
She’s not wrong that he’s got a lot to work through, but he can’t even think of where to begin with all of that. Luthor’s head rolling down the stairs would be a good start, but he doesn’t think with all these people now, that anyone’s gonna let him actually go through with that. Closure otherwise, seems impossible.  
  
He rakes a hand through his hair and sighs when he realizes he’s got paint either all in his hair, or all over his hand, and now it’s both places. He sighs and lights his cigarette instead, closing his eyes.  
  
“I’m sorry, man. She’s right,” Roy starts, “I gotta be more considerate. You’ve been through a lot, and you don’t have a lot of outlets. I’m hoping the team will be a good outlet, but I just don’t want you getting into more shit because you went too far in the moment.”  
  
Arsenal scoffs, “I don’t know if it’s even gonna happen, Roy.”  
  
Coming to sit on the wall rather than against it on the roof, Roy keeps eating his muffin, “Why would you say that?”  
  
He gestures to himself and to Roy, “You got a lot more hits in on me than I did on you.”  
  
“Well, it’s been a while since you’ve used your bow,” Artemis adds gently, “And now you’ve got a prosthetic to work with too. Luthor tech, can bet it’s kind of janky sometimes, huh?”  
  
Arsenal looks down at his hand, turning it over a little. The metal glints in the morning sun and he shoves his hand in his pocket so he doesn’t have to look at it.  
  
“I’ve been working on plans to reverse engineer it, build my own with this as a prototype, but it’s a lot of really particular parts and pieces and the way it wires to the nervous system is more advanced than the tools I have just laying around. I’d need an actual lab. Which, yknow, I don’t exactly have in laying around.”  
  
Artemis and Roy seem at a loss for words at first. Arsenal can’t say he blames them, really. This kind of thing- everything that’s happened to him- is a mess. Not just a mess, though, but it’s intricate and delicate, and a plethora of issues neither has had to face before. It’s not every day that someone goes through what Arsenal did. At least, he hopes it’s not.

“When we have a better base, I’m sure we’ll have a lab running again, if it helps,” Artemis offers gently, “The last base had a lab but it’s kind of a huge pile of slag now.”  
  
Arsenal shrugs his shoulder a little, nodding. He doesn’t say anything though.  
  
Artemis dusts her hands off, rolling her shoulders, “Alright then, how about we work on your hand to hand more than your bow. We know your aim’s good. Roy’s got an unfair advantage since he knows all too well how an archer moves. Why don’t we do some sparring, or see what other shiny toys you’ve got packed in there?”  
  
She squares up, and Arsenal glances at Roy to see if she’s actually serious about this. He gives him a little smile, gesturing with a hand at her. He’s still eating his muffin.  
  
Huffing a laugh, Arsenal sets the bag aside and stands up, shaking himself out, “Alright, you got yourself a deal.”

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**March 29, 13:24 PST**

  
  
“Arsenal?”  
  
“Mm?”  
  
Looking up from where he’s zoned out eating lunch, or what he thinks is lunch through the haze on his mind, he focuses to see Dinah leaned against the sink, a ponderous look on her face.

“Would you… would you like a new uniform made?” She sips what Arsenal thinks is lemonade, her attention finally coming from her own thoughts to him. “I heard that you were thinking of joining the team again, and I don’t think the Speedy costume is really your speed anymore.”  
  
Arsenal scoffs, “Someone’s mouthy.”  
  
“Roy. Obviously. I asked him why you two were covered in paint and fresh bruises. He fessed up quick.” Dinah smirks, though her eyes are still gentle. The more he talks to her, the more he understands what Oliver likes about her.

“Of course it was Roy. Snitch.”  
  
He sits back in his chair before he really comes back to the here and now. The aimless fog lifts a little and he relaxes, going back to eating his sandwich, though the bread is a little dry at the edges now.  
  
“So?” Dinah asks, pulling one of the kitchen chairs out to sit at the table across from him. “Would you like me to talk to someone about it?”  
  
Arsenal shrugs, chewing while he thinks. “I mean, I guess? I don’t know when I’m gonna be back up to standards the team would need. I’m working on it, but, it’s been a while. Having a suit though, it would be nice.”

Dinah nods, hands loose around her glass on the table.  
  
“If you need anything, you’ll let me know, won’t you? With your training? I trained the original team, and Roy when he didn’t have a stick up his ass.”

He finishes his sandwich and dusts the crumbs off his fingers and nods a little, not making eye contact at first. When he does though, he sees Dinah is watching him with soft eyes. The words die on his tongue and he picks up his plate and sets it in the sink before heading for the stairs, calling over his shoulder, “Thanks, Dinah.”

Dinah smiles but stays seated, calling in return, “Of course, Arsenal.”  
  
Arsenal jogs up to his room and closes the door behind him. He’s trying, he is! It’s just… it’s hard. It’s hard, and with so few people he _knows_, and even less who _understand_, he doesn’t know what to do or how to be better. 

Better seems like a fever dream.

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**March 30 21:02 PST**

Arsenal is watching over the city with a cigarette between his lips when Artemis swings herself over the edge of the roof from the fire escape. She’s quite, but not quite quiet enough. He heard her this time. She doesn’t seem like she’s trying to hide, just trying to get from one place to another.  
  
He glances sideways at her, smiling a little, “Come to serve me my ass again?”  
  
Artemis gives him the same soft smile, shrugging a shoulder, “Not tonight.” She eases up against the wall he’s leaning on, looking out over Star with him for a few long moments before she hums, “Can I bum one of those?”  
  
Digging around in his pocket, he pulls out the squashed pack and taps her out one, and the lighter after that. She takes them both with a smile, shielding the little flicker of flame from the wind, and hands him back the lighter when she’s done. The first drag is let out with a sigh.  
  
There’s a tightness to his stomach that he doesn’t like from the way her shoulders are set.  
  
“Something on your mind?” Arsenal asks, flicking ash off the end of his cigarette.  
  
“Something like that…” Artemis starts, and the tone says she has more to say, but chews it a little. He eyes her up but doesn’t push it. Eventually she gets around to it, “Can you do me a favor?”  
  
Brows pinched for a moment before one arches as he leans his weight differently to look at her better, “That depends.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah. Seriously, Arsenal,” Artemis flicks her own ash. “I need you to stay home tonight. No patrols.”  
  
Now he sees why he hadn’t felt good when she’d showed up. Something’s wrong.  
  
“What’s happening?” He asks, trying to keep his tone level and free from the underlying concern he feels.  
  
“Something I don’t want you caught up in,” Artemis warns, using her free hand to run fingers through her hair. She’s in her civvies, not her hero costume. He wonders if she’ll be staying out of it too.  
  
“Team stuff?”  
  
Artemis doesn’t answer. She just continues through her cigarette, watching over the city.  
  
Arsenal’s stomach twists more.  
  
“Just promise me, alright?” Artemis says quietly. “Stay home, watch some tv, eat some ice cream. Just… don’t go out tonight.”  
  
His mouth feels dry, his throat feels scratchy. She sounds adamant about this. He’s never seen her like this. He’s only known her for a little while, but Artemis has already become important to him in ways he doesn’t understand. Not like Roy, or Oliver, or even Dinah in her ways. She’s showed him a kindness he didn’t know people _could_ show.

“Okay,” he agrees, voice soft, but so much like sandpaper.  
  
She turns to him, smiling a little, and stubs out her cigarette before flicking it off into the night sky, trailing tiny embers as it disappears into the dark. She pulls the hair tie off her wrist and pulls her hair back with it, somehow managing to keep the mane contained.  
  
Artemis lets her hands drop to her sides and she tilts her chin a little, giving him a small but genuine smile, “Thanks, Arsenal.”  
  
When she turns to head back towards the fire escape, he almost reaches out, almost says her name, but he does. He lets her go. Whatever’s going on tonight, she’s clearly part of, and he’s clearly not. He doesn’t like that he can’t help, especially when he knows the team is so short handed right now, but he also knows that he’s still not up to par to keep up with the team, and is more than likely going to be a liability than an asset.  
  
She stops at the top of the fire escape and huffs a laugh, calling, “Have a good night!”  
  
He waves to her, then, and despite all the times he’s seen her and talked to her, and that weird tense and tight feeling in his chest _loosened_, it doesn’t tonight.  
  
As the fire escape creaks, the knotted mess in his chest and gut tighten and tug, til he feels he can’t breathe.  
  
He snuffs out his own cigarette and heads back inside. Hopefully there’s still some sherbet left.

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**March 31 03:41 PST**

“Repeating today’s top story, a small group of extraterrestrials, The Reach, have arrived at United Nations Headquarters in New York City.” Cat Grant’s voice quietly fills the living room, “For more on this, we go live to GBS’ own G. Gordon Godfrey at the UN.”

Arsenal’s had such a sour expression on his face since Artemis left that he’s given himself a headache. Which he’s promptly ignored in favor of watching the news and refreshing websites to try to see if he can’t catch wind of what’s going on.  
  
She’d come to tell him around 9pm last night, and now, at almost 4 in the morning, news is breaking on the east coast about aliens coming to make peaceful contact.  
  
Something’s up, something’s going on, and Arsenal doesn’t like being left out of the loop. But both Oliver and Dinah are asleep still, seeing as it’s four in the morning, so all he can do now, is sit, and watch, and wait.  
  
He glances at his phone.

Artemis told him if he needed anything, to just call her. He wonders idly if that’s an option here. If she’s busy, she won’t answer. If she’s hiding or working, he could blow her cover. He can’t imagine she leaves her ringer on, but he doesn’t know who else to talk to about this, and the deep sense of unease it leaves in him. Roy’s probably asleep. He’s got a baby to take care of, and he’s not doing hero shit anymore, so really, waking him up would be rude.  
  
Arsenal pulls one knee to his chest and watches the coverage, the pinch of his brows making his headache steadily worse.

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**March 31 14:24 PST**

  
  
Sleep hadn’t come easily, and for the better part of the hours of the day, Arsenal has dozed off to restless sleep, and stared at his phone. All the news covers is what’s going on with The Reach, and that still doesn’t sit well with him. Especially since he hasn’t actually seen Artemis today.

When he finally breaks and finds Oliver in the training room, he leans on the doorway. He knows from his glance in the mirror the bags under his eyes look like bruises.  
  
Oliver stops what he’s doing, hands up to grab the punching back, looking past it at Arsenal in the doorway.  
  
“Arsenal?”  
  
He doesn’t get an answer.  
  
“Are you alright, over there?”  
  
Arsenal shrugs a shoulder, coming into the room finally. Maybe when Roy and Artemis are busy he can use this room for training. He’d prefer if it were alone, not with Ollie, but for now, he’s just come to talk.  
  
“Do you know… do you know where Artemis is? Is she still at that safehouse in Jump?”  
  
Oliver unvelcroes the straps to his gloves, taking them off one at a time before grabbing up his towel to wipe his forehead down, “Huh. I don’t actually know. I haven’t heard from her in a couple of days. Why? Did something happen?”  
  
Arsenal’s fingers trace over the weights on the rack as he glances sideways in the floor to ceiling mirror, then away when his stomach clenches at the sight of himself. It’s not bad, he just doesn’t like looking at his own face. He sees Roy enough. He looks Ollie over and reaches to rub the back of his neck a little sheepishly.  
  
“She dropped by last night, about nine, said not to go on patrol. I didn’t. But news all day’s been talking about The Reach and all that shit going on and I don’t know if they’re related or… whatever she was up to last night, I don’t know if she came back from it. I haven’t heard from her all day.”  
  
He shifts from foot to foot, “I don’t need her to check in or some shit, I’m not her _keeper_, but she seemed worried about whatever was going on last night. Adamant I stay out of it.”  
  
Oliver grabs his bottle of water and sits on the bench with a sigh, taking a sip while he catches his breath.  
  
“Well, as far as I know she’s still in Jump, in the safehouse with Rose. Her and her boyfriend aren’t on great terms with everything that’s going on right now. At least, that’s as far as I know. Otherwise, though, I haven’t heard anything.”  
  
“She told me to call her if I needed anything, or wanted to check on her, so I don’t have to zeta all the way to wherever she is, but- I mean if something serious is going on, I don’t want to out her position or interrupt some well earned rest, yknow?”  
  
Standing up from his spot on the bench, towel around his neck, Oliver approaches slowly, giving Arsenal time to move if he’s not comfortable with being approached, but he doesn’t. He stands still, even as Ollie puts a hand on his shoulder.  
  
“I don’t think she’d be mad, even if you _did_ wake her, since she told you it would be fine, but if you’re worried about it, maybe just text her, and if she’s resting after a mission or something, she’ll get back to you.”  
  
Oliver squeezes his shoulder and Arsenal sighs, finally shrugging it off gently, “Yeah, maybe.” Brows pinched, he looks back up at his mentor, “Do you not know what goes on with the team?”  
  
Huffing a laugh, he shakes his head, “God, no. It’s hard enough keeping up with the League. The team might be affiliated and take orders from Batman through Nightwing, but with everything going on with the League being offworld, and those of us still part of the League that aren’t caught up in that debacle, we’ve got a lot more work to be doing keeping the peace here. Especially with The Reach deciding they’re here to stick their noses into our business.”  
  
“You don’t trust it either, do you?” Arsenal smiles a little, quirking a brow.  
  
“Absolutely not. Their ambassador’s got a smarmy look to him. Like if he doesn’t get his way, he’ll throw a fit.” Ollie rolls his eyes a little. He smiles for Arsenal before nodding towards the door, “C’mon, I think Dinah’s got lunch ready.”

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**March 31 18:53 PST**

**[msg] Arsenal:** hey i was just texting to see how things were going  
**[msg] Arsenal:** u said some really cryptic shit last night  
  
**[msg] Artemis:** the team had some things to do on the docks, but everyone’s present and accounted for.  
  
**[msg] Arsenal:** nobody got hurt?  
  
**[msg] Artemis:** I never said that.  
  
**[msg] Arsenal:** did it have to do with the reach showing up today?  
  
**[msg] Artemis:** in a manner of speaking, I guess.

**[msg] Arsenal:** do u know how not to be suspicious as hell?

**[msg] Artemis:** >:3

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**April 1 15:10 PST**

Sitting in the living room, the television playing some afternoon game show he’s not paying attention to, Arsenal watches Dinah text for a couple of minutes, the wrinkle in her brow getting deeper with every little buzz of an incoming message. When Oliver comes in from outside, she’s up, grabbing her keys off the table and pulling a bag over her shoulder.  
  
“Woah, what’s the rush, pretty bird?” Oliver asks, coming around the table.  
  
“They found the kidnapped kids last night. The ones The Reach took captive. Nightwing’s asked if I could come in and do some counselling for them.”  
  
“Wait, The Reach took _captives_?” Arsenal jolts, suddenly snapping to attention as he gets up from the couch in the other room to come see what the commotion is about.  
  
“Last night, the team went undercover, hid among civilians and were kidnapped by The Reach down on the docks. They’ve had suspicions they’ve been kidnapping people for some time now. They were able to get in and liberate the civilians captured for Reach experimentation,” Dinah explains, but it’s all quick and to the point. She doesn’t look like she wants to waste any time. “When The Reach realized they’d had a major breach, they came forward with some story about peace before the team could disclose anything about what happened.”  
  
Arsenal feels like his legs are jelly. _That’s_ why Artemis told him not to go out on patrol. That’s what she’d been talking about when she said they’d had work to do on the docks. They’d been staging an undercover break out and if Arsenal hadn’t been ready, or up to speed enough, he would have compromised everyone. That, or if he’d jumped to conclusions trying to help a situation that didn’t need helping he would have botched the whole thing.  
  
He scrubs his hands through his hair and heaves a sigh, half turning away, then turning back, “Is there anything I can do to help?”  
  
Dinah shakes her head, “Not right now, no. Everyone’s already out and in good care. I’m just offering what I can to help them through this.”  
  
“Kaldur’ahm and Conner?” Ollie asks gently.  
  
Dinah looks to him, and then lowers her eyes, shifting her bag on her shoulder, “I gotta go, handsome.” She leans in to give him a kiss to the cheek, a hand on his arm. She looks them both over, voice a little softer, “Stay safe, you two.”  
  
Arsenal nods a little, still feeling out of sorts. He feels so out of so many loops. He wonders how much Roy knows about all this, when he’s said he’s done so he can focus on staying clean and taking care of his daughter, because despite that, he’d been part of the team. Hell, he’d been part of the _Justice League_, no matter how short lived it had ended up being in the end.

Looking from Ollie to Dinah as she heads out, Arsenal skitters back up to his room to get things around, and when he comes back down the stairs, Oliver is sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hand. Startling at Arsenal’s rush, he speaks up, “Not you too!”  
  
He stops only for a second, hand on the door frame, “Sorry Ollie, I gotta check on some shit.”

All he hears is an irritated sigh as he takes off out the door in the same direction as Dinah. He doesn’t catch her, but he knows she ended up going down to the hideout to use the zeta to get to wherever they’re holding the liberated kids.  
  
Arsenal’s got a different destination.

* * *

**JUMP CITY**

**April 1 15:21 PST**

Shaking off the tug of the zeta on his insides, Arsenal stumbles out of the phone booth and mutters to himself the path back to the safehouse Artemis is staying in, and hopes she’s there. Again, he’s forgotten to call her or text her rather than just turning up, and banking on the idea she’s here and not somewhere else. Her _actual_ apartment, on a mission, with the team, _anywhere_.  
  
He honestly forgets phones are such a big part of today’s society. He had a phone before he was kidnapped, but he didn’t use it nearly as much as people do now, so it just slips his mind.

Jogging up the steps, he knocks on the door, shifting a little as he listens to the city around them, squinting at the sun overhead through the clouds.

The door opens and he turns quick, clearly relaxing to see Artemis on the other side. She ushers him inside quickly, shutting and locking the door, “Arsenal?”  
  
He puts a hand up, “I know, I know, I could have called or texted or- yknow, any of that shit. I know. But- Dinah just left. Nightwing asked her to help with the civilians the team liberated last night.”  
  
Artemis doesn’t say anything, but crosses her arms, leaning against the door.  
  
“You guys were purposefully kidnapped to get people out?” He pushes, “You told me you had shit to do, it had to do with The Reach, and that everyone was fine, but-”  
  
He cuts himself off, turning to pace. He has his bag with him, and his Speedy suit. But how much good that’d do him now... Arsenal runs his hands over his hair, stopping his pacing to look at her.  
  
Artemis scuffs her boot against the worn floorboards but still says nothing.  
  
“If you’re encouraging me to join up with the team to help, don’t you think I should probably know what’s going on?”  
  
“No,” Artemis says simply, pushing herself away from the door to walk farther into the safehouse. It doesn’t look like Rose is here right now.  
  
“No?” Arsenal asks, following behind her, “Why not?”  
  
“Because you’re going to try to help,” Artemis tries to keep it simple and her voice level, but Arsenal can hear a little bit of a wobble to it. Not nearly as much as in his voice, though.  
  
“Of course I’m gonna try to help! That’s the point!”  
  
“You’re not ready yet, Arsenal.” Her tone is more curt this time, stopping and turning to look at him.  
  
Arsenal stands still for a few moments, staring at her.  
  
“Is that really up to you to decide?” he asks quietly, jaw set.  
  
Artemis heaves a sigh, starting back into the living room to hook a finger in the blinds and peek out of the window and into the street below. Arsenal can’t see what she sees, but he hopes she doesn’t see whatever it is she’s looking for.

“It’s not up to me, no. But it’s up to Nightwing. And he’s even more of a stickler than I am.”

“I can’t wait to sit through a psych eval to be able to help dish out some damn justice,” Arsenal growls quietly. It’s not directed _at_ Artemis and she knows that.

“I just didn’t want you to get hurt when you’re still getting up to speed,” Artemis comes away from the window.  
  
The two stand on opposite sides of the apartment for a few long moments before Artemis speaks up, “You wanna stay for dinner?”

Blinking quickly, Arsenal looks on her with confusion. He’d come in a rush, through the zetas, across cities, just to see if she was alright, and now she’s… offering dinner?  
  
He glances at the floor, unsure, and eventually looks back up at her with that same confusion, but nods shallowly, “Sure.”

She flips her phone over in her hand, “If I give you my phone to order Chinese, think you can manage while I run down to the corner store?”

Arsenal rolls his eyes at her, “I’m not an idiot, Artemis. I think I can manage.”  
  
A smile and a laugh and she taps in the number for the Chinese place before she rounds the couch to grab her jacket off the hook by door.  
  
“Wait,” Arsenal turns, “You’re… you’re really serious?”  
  
“Yeah?” She asks, popping the collar up on the jacket, smoothing it down, fishing her keys out of her pocket. “Did you wanna go back to Ollie’s place?”  
  
He shifts from foot to foot for a moment, “I mean, if you’re chill with me hanging out, it’s nice getting out.”  
  
“I need a night to veg out after... I’ll be back in ten.” She reaches for the door, and stops herself, “Oh, wait-”  
  
Artemis crosses the room again and pulls her wallet out of her pocket, and her card out of that to hand it over, “Peking ribs and chow mein.”  
  
Another little smile before she heads out, and Arsenal stands in the middle of someone else’s living room and watches her leave.  
  
He can’t help but think about how tired she looks. Not just the circles under her eyes, but the way she always seems to have a little crease in her brow. She smiles though, and he hopes him being around helps take her mind off stuff. Off Wally and the team and everything going on. He knows there’s a lot going on, but sometimes all you can do is wait, and that’s what they’re doing tonight.  
  
He knows he does it often, but it’s fascinating and a little sad being able to see the edges of someone’s mask this clearly.

Arsenal orders them some food, and sits himself back down to wait.  
  
Artemis comes back in with the key and locks the top lock on the door but leaves the rest undone while they wait for food to be delivered. After he’d ordered he wondered how safe it was to have food delivered to a safehouse, but she doesn’t seem that worried, so he’ll leave it be.  
  
She sets a bag on the counter and glances into the living room where Arsenal is still sitting in the same chair, not having moved. The phone and card are sitting on the coffee table.  
  
“You know you don’t have to be on your guard 24/7, Arsenal. No one’s going to get in.”  
  
He squeezes the back of his neck, “It’s not- I’m not worried about someone getting in. My fight or flight are shit, constantly feelin’ like I gotta bolt.”

“Well, I’m not gonna keep you here, either. If you feel like you have to run, you always can. But!” She gestures to the bag, “If you _do_ wanna stick around, Chinese is on the way, and I bought a six pack and some jerky.”  
  
Arsenal’s smile comes slow, but he stands to come see what she bought, leaving his bag on the chair, “How old _are_ you?”  
  
Artemis gives him a look, “What are you, a snitch?”  
  
The laugh bubbles up before he can squash it down and he grins, “Not on your life.”

He peeks in the bag to see that she did, indeed, buy a six pack and a package of jerky. A saint.

Arsenal pulls out a beer and is pleasantly surprised they’re still cold. He isn’t sure why he thought they might not be. He smiles, raising it to her, even still capped, tonight’s a good night.  
  
“Don’t tell Ollie I let you drink. You probably already do, but he thinks I’m an angel.”  
  
She smiles and gently taps her bottle to his before she’s taking the other four to the fridge, and tossing the jerky onto the couch. Plopping down on the couch, she pops her bottle open and takes a swig before relaxing back with a sigh. She gestures to the bag by the chair.  
  
“So what’s in the bag? You had it last time, too.”  
  
Arsenal wonders how long a night she’d had.  
  
Glancing over the couch at him, Arsenal is shrugging off his jacket, but keeping his hoodie underneath on. He comes back in with his beer and picks up the bag to the floor next to the chair, pulling a length of red fabric half out of the bag before stuffing it back in. He shrugs a shoulder, “It’s my suit. Figured better have it on hand. Just in case.”  
  
Artemis nods a little, “Is it still the Speedy suit?”  
  
Arsenal regards the bag before pursing his lips, “Yeah.”  
  
A drink of her beer before setting it on the table, “You going to get it updated? Maybe something a little more _you_?”  
  
Eyes trace the patterned floor a few times over before he looks up to meet her dark eyes, “I’m still figuring out who that _is_ now. Kinda got hijacked and all. But Dinah asked, yeah.”  
  
“Hijacked.” Artemis winces a little, “Right.”  
  
A knock saves the two of them from a perhaps even the embarrassment that might have followed with silence. She hops up to get it, putting a hand up to let Arsenal know he could stay.  
  
She makes sure to tip the person at the door, and closes all four of the locks and the handle after she’s got the bag in hand, and turns back once she’s sure it’s secure. The contents get spread out over the coffee table and popped open to be dug into mutually, though her peking duck is closer to her and his orange chicken is closer to him.  
  
The two of them sit and talk for the better part of the night, about a lot of things, and make snide comments about the bad television shows. About what Artemis is majoring in, about how Arsenal got into the cape life, about the team, current and those who’ve come and gone. Neither offers an incredible amount of detail, and Arsenal realizes that Artemis keeps things close to her chest too.  
  
He can respect that.  
  
As the night stretches on and they continue their drinking, though, Arsenal speaks up with a little more purpose in his tone, even a little loose at the edges, “It’s nice- being able to just talk. Exist. Be here, or anywhere probably, and not have to worry about before. I don’t know if I’m ever gonna have that- not worrying about what happened before- the people I knew and what happened while I was gone. But, when I don’t have to, it’s nice.”  
  
He smiles for her, showing just a bit of teeth, “So thanks.”  
  
Artemis smiles back, a little softer, “Happy to help, Arsenal. I’m not… the best at talking. But I listen pretty well.”  
  
“Oh please,” Arsenal scoffs a laugh, “Ollie says you’re like the den mother to all the young heroes in the group. He said they look up to you a lot.”  
  
She thinks on it, swirling the last of her last beer, “I… guess they do, yeah. I hadn’t really thought about it. I just know they need someone, and I’m here. I’ve been in this life a while, I know what it can be like. And there’s some who don’t have mentors or if they do have mentors, don’t have parents. Jaime and Bart, who just came to us from the future. Jaime’s mentor died before he met him, and Bart’s family is in the future. They’re here too, but it’s not the same, you know?”  
  
Arsenal squints a little, “I… think I get it?”  
  
“And Jaime can’t really go back to be with his family, since he doesn’t trust his scarab yet not to make a whole mess of shit.”  
  
“I think I’d be less confused if I even knew who these guys were.”  
  
“Right, you haven’t met ‘em. Kaldur kidnapped them before he blew up Mt. Justice. We got them out last night, and a bunch of other kids, but they need some therapy and a good night’s sleep.”  
  
There’s that look about her again, when she pulls her hair down and shakes some of it loose. She looks tired. Stressed. This kind of life never does well for sleep or nerves, but she puts on a strong face for it. He doesn’t think that’s very good, but that’s her choice, he guesses.  
  
“Listen,” Arsenal speaks up, and she looks up to meet his eyes, “Send me the files, what you can, catch me up with what’s going on, where all the pieces on the board are, all that jazz, and I’ll do what I can.”  
  
“Arsenal,” Artemis sighs, “Shouldn’t you be, like, recuperating?”  
  
“Recuperating? From what?” He scoffs, “No one knows what happened. Everyone just assumes it’s something I can take a nap and be alright after. There’s not really a recuperating option. It’s either get on with my life or...”  
  
Arsenal heaves a sigh, running his hand through his hair. He suddenly doesn’t feel good about how long it is. It’s not even that long, but Rose saying he looked like Roy, brings about an unpleasant feeling in his gut that he doesn’t like. Roy has lived his life for the last eight years. Everyone and their mother knows Roy as Red Arrow. As Green Arrow’s sidekick. As the addict with a kid. He can’t tie himself to that, even if it had been his own first. Roy has all his memories and experiences before Luthor took him and that makes Roy just as much him as he is. 

It wouldn’t be fair of him to demand his life back, especially when it’s a life he hasn’t been here for.  
  
“You haven’t even told Ollie?” Artemis asks gently.  
  
“No. It’s been hard enough getting him to quit blaming himself for Luthor pulling the wool over his eyes. I’m not gonna make him feel worse for my trauma, too.”  
  
Artemis shifts a little, watching the television. The two fall into a silence, and this one _is_ awkward. It feels heavy and stifling. It makes Arsenal’s gut twist with the fight or flight reflex again. He hates the feeling, and how he feels he doesn’t have much control over it.  
  
He hates how he feels he has so little control over himself in general.  
  
“You can talk to me. Like I said, I’m not great at talking back, but I’m good at listening.”  
  
Arsenal glances up at her from where he’s still sitting on the floor. His stomach twists and he wonders if this much food and beer was a good idea. It wasn’t enough to get drunk, surely, but the warmth probably doesn’t help the unpleasant feelings stirring in his gut and chest. He hasn’t talked about what happened, not only because he didn’t feel he had anyone he could tell, but because he has done a lot to try not to think about it himself. That comes with marginal success.  
  
“It’s… hard to explain.”  
  
Artemis doesn’t say anything, but her eye contact reinforces the notion she’s here to listen if he wants to share, but that she won’t push him into it, either.  
  
“It’s like… You’re dozing off and it's quiet and there's the pulse of color, behind your eyes. With your heart, or your breathing. Like ripples in a pond. And your mind wanders- fuckin’ meanders from one thing to another and you start with thinking about chalupas and end up think thinking about Atlantis. And you think man it'd be nice to fall asleep and you keep trying, letting your mind wander more. It’s not racing, but you’re restless. You try counting sheep and you get to three hundred and twelve and think okay maybe just wake up and get some water and try again. That’ll fix this shit, right? But you're already in deep enough but not _totally_ under so you can't really rouse enough to get up, and you’re not fully under, either.”  
  
Arsenal explains, his hand moving a little in a floaty manner to indicate what he means.

“So you go back to thinking. And you think about the shit you gotta get done when you get home, the paper that's due. Home- you’re out on a mission to deal with Lex Luthor, and you’re obviously asleep in the hotel room before the big drop on him- you can't remember if you started that homework or not, but you know you really gotta finish it because Ollie doesn’t fuck around with your homeschooling. And you wonder how long you've been laying here trying to rest. Fifteen minutes? An hour? You haven’t heard anyone, so Oliver must be asleep on the other bed too. Time is fucky in a headspace like this so you try not to think about it, instead think about the water ripples like your pulse again.”  
  
The more he recounts, the rougher his voice gets. He takes breaths in between. Remembering the sensations aren’t pleasant, clearly.

“After a few more hours, you panic. You can't breathe and normally that'd pull you out of your haze, have you gasping and clawing at your sheets, but it _doesn't_. And you just sit through the panic til it stops? Because you don’t really have a choice since you’re not waking up. And you wonder how long you were freaking out? It can't be more than like ten minutes, but your mind is just racing now, obviously. Maybe it was the stress of the mission. Maybe it was the bad street cart food you and Ollie ate. You don't know! So you try to relax, even your breathing, and just rest. You’re tired from panicking about some irrational feeling in your chest not getting to sleep but not awake enough to get up. You should be able to just pass out at this point.”  
  
Arsenal’s voice gets thicker.  
  
“You’re almost desperate for it.”  
  
And then his voice starts to shake a little as he explains how it felt to be in Luthor’s grip.

“But it never happens. You never rest. You never fall asleep. You stay in that fucking place, in your own head and in the dark. Time passes and sometimes you just give up under the weight of the panic and you drift and don’t think about anything for god only knows how long. Not the chalupas or Atlantis or the sheep or the fuckin’ ripples on the pond behind your eyes. And when you come back to yourself after dissociating in this horrible endless limbo between awake and asleep, you do it all again.  
  
And you do that for _eight fucking years_. Eight years.

Ad infinitum until you wake up in a hospital bed and the first thing you do is roll over and puke off the side of the bed."  
  
Arsenal’s knees are closer to his chest, his whole body language closed off and hard.  
  
“I thought I was going crazy so many times, that I was sick, that there had to be some kind of psychic villain fucking with my head, or with my perception of time. I even thought it might be aliens, that maybe I’d been fuckin’ abducted- I thought of everything and anything as some means to try to explain what was happening to me and why. Because when you’re given eight years of real time to contemplate your life, your situation- you’re gonna come up with anything you can to make sense of it.”  
  
He picks at the loose strings of the shredded knees of his jeans, his voice still shaky and thick.

“And I never came out of the dark. There were a few times that I felt some sensation, but it was so far away, in this haze, but the longer I was in there, the colder the whole place felt. It makes sense now, it was the cryostasis they had me in, but man, there towards the end, I was just… begging for that cold to kill me already. I really did think it was just the inexcusably long process of dying.”  
  
He rubs the back of his head, “Probably sounds dumb.”  
  
Artemis finally speaks up, and she has to clear her throat a little, “It’s not dumb. It was you trying to rationalize what happened.”  
  
Glancing up at her, Arsenal reaches for and polishes off the rest of the last beer he had, setting the bottle on the table with the other two and rubs at his mouth and jaw, voice quiet, “I guess so, yeah.”  
  
He feels like he can’t breathe, and he’s chilly, even though he knows it’s warm in here, but that’s just the PTSD talking, he knows.  
  
“I don’t know how I got through so long of that hell. Even that… I really can’t explain just how awful it was. Just how helpless I was. I wanted to be awake. I wanted to be fully under. I wanted to be straight up dead sometimes. And that wasn’t even the worst of it, that state he had me in. Eight years, and my _arm_. He took my fucking _arm_.”  
  
The stump aches from all the talk about Luthor and the shit he did, and his own trauma and unease crawling under his skin. He pulls his sleeve up so he can undo the lock on the arm and pop it off. He tosses it to the floor unceremoniously, pulling his amputated arm against his chest with a huge sigh, closing his eyes.  
  
He’s never going to be able to talk to Artemis again after dumping his garbage in her lap after a few beers. What a train wreck, he is.

“I might not be able to relate the same way, and I’m never gonna try to make light of the trauma you went through, but… time being taken away and someone forcing your hand- that kinda thing shouldn’t be something anyone should know.” Artemis keeps her voice soft, distant still, and it’s clear that even as she keeps things close to the chest, she’s sharing just a little bit of herself with him, to sympathize, and relate.

  
“Yeah?” Arsenal croaks, scratching a hand through his hair when his voice cracks and he wants to crawl into a hole.  
  
“Dear old dad used to drug me and my sister, drop us in a country and tell us to off somebody, used us for hits, and if we failed, we had to figure out how to get home on our own.”  
  
Arsenal’s brows knit as it sinks in, “Did you?” a small pause, “Kill people, I mean.”  
  
“A couple of times. Usually in self defense. I learned quick how to refuse and get home. People can be really accommodating if they can see you don’t know the language and you’re lost. Play it up and you’re on a plane back to the States in a few days.”  
  
“A few days?” Arsenal laughs, but it’s more confusion and concern than humor.  
  
Artemis smiles a little, “Some places you wake up have some real nice food and cool landmarks!”  
  
The tension eases a little, and it really is uncanny the way she makes him feel. He can’t help but smile at the ridiculousness of it all. Not only in the lengths her father went to with his abusive tactics, but the way she handles recollecting. He can’t imagine she hadn’t been scared, but she has such an air of confidence to her. Nothing seems to phase her.  
  
He knows it’s not true, but damn if she isn’t convincing.

The two lapse back into a comfortable silence, they talk quietly, they share a few stories. Arsenal tells her embarrassing things about Ollie, and she tells him a few stories of his misadventure while he was away.

The sharp sound of a phone ringing has Artemis is up, on her feet, and scooping it up to answer it with barely any hesitation.

Arsenal’s heart pounds, and he breathes and rubs his face, listening in to her one sided conversation.

“You couldn’t have called me sooner, Dick? No, I know.” A sigh. “No, I’m gonna take the zeta. I’ll be there. I know- no, I know where it is.”  
  
She pauses for a few moments longer, “No, I don’t think he’s coming.”

Arsenal pushes himself to sit, squeezing a kink out of his neck as he does. He slept hard, but so awkwardly in the chair.

“Right, I’ll be there.”  
  
Artemis hangs up the phone and glances back at Arsenal, standing still in the middle of the kitchen looking into the living room.  
  
“Do you want me to go with you?” Arsenal asks gently.  
  
Artemis’ face softens a little and she shoves her phone in her pocket as she gets her things around, “No, it’s alright. You should get back to Ollie’s, get some breakfast- some _water_.”  
  
Arsenal glances away. It figures. Absolutely useless.  
  
She sees that in him, though, and stops, hand on her jacket on hook by the door.  
  
“Hey.”  
  
Looking up, Arsenal still has his hand on his neck, rubbing the sore spot.  
  
“I’ll cut you a deal, alright?” Artemis starts, “I’ll talk to Nightwing tonight about you joining the team, and for the next week, you crack down, train hard, and, yknow, eat your vegetables. And when we need you, _soon_, we’ll let you know.”

It takes Arsenal a second, just watching her across the little safehouse, but in the end, he nods. He doesn’t like it. But he knows she’s only doing what she hopes is in his best interest. And he can’t fault her for that. Artemis is always looking out for others, and doing all she can to make sure people are safe.

He wonders idly how he could have ever thought she was some spy.

“Alright good, okay, I gotta go, which means, sorry Arsenal, I gotta kick you out. Rose comes back and finds out you’re napping on the couch, or- man, god forbid, her _dad_? Both our heads mounted on the wall.”

Arsenal scoops up his bag, situating himself with his hoodie and jacket, and forces his boots on to follow her out the door. On the steps, he takes a few down, and she locks the door at the landing.

They walk to the zeta together, like he’d followed along behind Dinah the day before, and Artemis sees him off first. Sitting on the bench in the little phone booth, he looks up at her where she’s leaned on the booth.  
  
“Good luck, Artemis.”  
  
She smiles, and it’s genuine and warm. Standing up straight, she reaches to pull the door closed, but not before answering quietly, “Good luck with your training, Arsenal.”

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**April 1 21:37 PST**

Arsenal opens the door to the house, and is very nearly bowled over by Oliver leaving. He’s decked out in his Green Arrow gear, head to toe, which really isn’t the smartest move considering if anyone’s watching, they’re seeing Star City’s very own Green Arrow coming out of some nice house uptown.  
  
“Jesus, Ollie, what’s going on?” Arsenal pins himself back against the wall with a huff.  
  
Oliver catches his shoulder and sighs, “Sorry kiddo, I gotta go. Roy’s here with Lian. There’s been an attack on the Hall of Justice.”  
  
“Never sleeps, huh?” Arsenal shakes his head.  
  
His jaw tightens and he shakes his head, heading out the door. Arsenal watches him go, and shuts the door behind him, letting his hand linger on the handle for a few long moments.  
  
The hand that settles on his shoulder makes him jolt a little but when he realizes it’s Roy, he relaxes a little, heaving a sigh.  
  
Looking back up at him, Roy gives him a soft look of understanding. Lian squirms against his shoulder, gurgling quietly. He shifts her so that Arsenal can see, and he reaches up to let her play with his finger. She smiles, gummy and full of nothing but innocent happiness.  
  
Roy leads him back into the house, and though it’s tough, the three of them settle in for the evening. Dinah was helping Nightwing with therapy, Artemis had gone off to help him with something, and now Oliver’s gone to help with an attack on the Hall.  
  
Arsenal sits on the couch, running his hand over his hair before he sighs, lost in thought about it all.  
  
Roy shifts Lian against his shoulder now that she’s starting to doze of, rubbing her back in little circles, “Penny for your thoughts?”  
  
He looks sideways at the two of them, how soft they are, and how they fit against one another. He closes his eyes and tries to relax. It’s hard.  
  
“I feel useless. I wanna break shit and blow something up and- just stomp my foot like a fuckin’ child. I want to help. I want to be useful.”  
  
Roy nods a little, but doesn’t say anything, because the way Arsenal speaks, he’s got more to say.  
  
“I just- he took so much from me, Roy. He ruined me,” Arsenal’s voice croaks, “I don’t wanna be broken anymore.”  
  
A hand settles on his knee and Arsenal looks up at his… brother. His eyes are glassy and hot and he coughs to hide how he has to clear the thickness in his throat.  
  
“You’re not useless. Or ruined. Or broken.” Roy’s voice is soft. “You were hurt. But it isn’t the end for you.”  
  
“How do you know?”  
  
For all the vitriol and anger and urge to smash things Arsenal harbors, he doesn’t quake with that rage now. His voice shakes with sadness, and fear.

“I know, because you’re strong. I’m pretty sure I know just how strong. Sometimes it’s hard to dig through the rubble and get to the last reserves, but… believe me, it’s there.”  
  
Arsenal puts his head in his hands slowly, breathing shaking. The hand on his knee moves to his back, stroking up and down like he’s been doing with Lian. He feels so helpless.  
  
“Did you know you’ve been helping already?” Roy asks gently.  
  
He peeks at his clone, and Lian cradled against his shoulder. He watches eyes that mirror his own, searching for the answers.  
  
“You being here has helped a lot of people, me and Ollie especially, appreciate life, and the impact you’ve had on us. We can finally breathe easily, now that you’re home and safe. You’ve helped me with Lian. Artemis is coming out of her shell a little for you. Dinah wants nothing but the best for you.”  
  
Roy rubs his back, “Just because you haven’t been out there punching Merlyn himself, or putting a car bomb under every one of Luthor’s trucks, or taking down The Light itself from the inside out, doesn’t mean you aren’t helping. What you went through, it’ll take time, you know. But you aren’t broken, and you aren’t ruined. We’re here to help you, just like you’re helping us.”  
  
Arsenal puts his face in his hands when his tears spill over because he doesn’t want Roy to see. But he knows. And Arsenal knows he knows.  
  
Roy pulls him against him and rubs his arm, supporting him while they sit in the quiet of the house, waiting.

* * *

**STAR CITY**

**April 7 17:12 PST**

Arsenal closes the door behind him and he blinks quickly, glancing over the scene in the kitchen. It’s everyone. Not just Dinah and Oliver, like usual. Oliver is finishing dinner at the stove, he’s not sure what it is, and Dinah has a manila folder open on the table reading. Roy is sitting with Lian in her highchair beside him. And Artemis is leaned over smiling for her niece.  
  
They all look to Arsenal when he comes out from the training room, still sweaty and a little red in the face.  
  
“What’s- uh- is there a special occasion?”  
  
“Not particularly,” Roy smiles, but he gives Artemis a look that Arsenal catches, “Thought we’d all get together and have some dinner, yknow?”  
  
He stands idle for a moment while Oliver turns the stove off and turns to look at him more fully, “Why don’t you go clean up, dinner’s done.”  
  
Still a little out of sorts at the suddenness of it all, Arsenal pulls his prosthetic against his side, lifting it so he can cradle his arm a little and turns up the stairs.  
  
His shirt and binder are peeled off, dropped unceremoniously onto the bed. Boots toed off and kicked aside, pants shucked off. When he’s finally in his underwear, he slips into his bathroom to splash some water on his face and put on some more deodorant. After, he plops his ass down on the end of the bed despite it’s creaking protests.  
  
Fingers trace along the edge of his arm, up past the elbow, to the edge of the prosthetic and sleeve, til he finds skin. The nerves in this whole area are weird, and even though the prosthetic has feeling, has sensation, it’s still a dissonance he has trouble with.  
  
Along to the inside of the arm, a tiny lock he clicks, that releases the pressure and connection of the arm and it’s sophisticated tech, to his nervous system. He uses the other hand to pull it off his stump, setting it on the bed beside him, and the sleeve after.  
  
Arsenal takes a few minutes to sit and rub the ache the arm leaves before gets back up, pulls his shirt and hoodie on, and grabs up his sleep pants, tugging them on one leg at a time while he sits on the bed. He should have done this before he took his arm off, but he _does_ get the added snarky satisfaction of this all reminding him of sending a rocket careening into Lex Luthor’s penthouse office.  
  
Such a shame he didn’t die.

He’ll make sure to do it right next time.

A lot has happened, and a lot is going to continue to happen, but he still has that fire of revenge burning hot in his belly. He’ll make sure he feeds that fire. It won’t be tonight, or even probably next week, but he’s been training and working hard for the last week, and hopefully that’s a step in the right direction.

Whatever that direction might be.

Jogging back down to the kitchen, everyone is where he left them, and he slides into one of the chairs as Oliver sets various pots and pans full of food on warm plates on the table, well within everyone’s reach to be able to serve themselves.  
  
There’s quiet chatter about this and that, about repairs to the Hall, about the new temporary base of operations in Bludhaven since Mount Justice was leveled. About Roy’s meetings, and the progress Dinah is making with therapy after the kidnappings.  
  
A lot of people talk, but Arsenal doesn’t have a lot to say. He eats a lot, just listening to all of them talk, glad for a chill night after he’s been working his ass off all week.  
  
“So what was the look earlier?”  
  
They all look to him, and each other, a little lost.  
  
Arsenal huffs a laugh, nodding his head at Roy and Artemis. “You two were bein’ cheeky earlier. What’s going on?”  
  
They glance at each other and Artemis reaches over to her side, pulling a file from her bag, sliding it over to him. Arsenal sets his plate aside and flips it open, reading what’s inside.  
  
It’s a few different papers. One is the specs for his suit that’s been finished, and paper clipped to it, a picture of it laid out. It looks badass.  
  
And another set is mission briefing for a recon mission to investigate LexCorp Farms.  
  
“_Alpha_ Squad,” he breathes, looking back up at the table.  
  
“Tomorrow we’re going to Bludhaven. Proper mission briefing is 9 am. You, Robin, Impulse, and Blue Beetle, are all going to be going in, undercover, to LexCorp Farms, seeing what you can find about the drink they’ve been trying to roll out in conjunction with The Reach. We don’t trust it. We need proof.”  
  
Artemis explains, her hand propped up on her elbow. Her eyes are warm and excited for him, and Arsenal can’t quiet the grin on his face.  
  
He huffs a laugh, nodding, “I’ll be there.”  
  
The last page in the folder makes him take pause though, and he has to stop to read it a few times to really take it in.  
  
Looking up, Dinah’s hand is settled on Oliver’s on the table, and Ollie looks like he might bolt into the rafters.  
  
“Is this… is this right?”  
  
Dinah squeezes his hand, and Ollie croaks out a noise before he clears his throat, trying again, “Sure is. Figured we’d give you all the good news at once. Or, yknow, all the _big_ news.”  
  
Arsenal’s fingers trace over the raised seal on the paper as it really sinks in.  
  
They’re adoption papers.  
  
“But, yknow, it’s up to you. How you feel about it, and all,” Oliver’s voice shakes a little.  
  
Shoulders relax a little at a time and he sits back. He’s honestly floored. He doesn’t know what to say. The table seems to be holding their breath though, and when he realizes he starts a little.  
  
“Sorry- shit- I-” he takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly, “I’d like that.”  
  
Oliver’s eyes, full of fear and uncertainty, light up with a hint of nervousness sure, but excitement, and relief.  
  
“Really?”  
  
Arsenal’s expression softens a little, “Yeah, but only if you don’t cry about it.”  
  
His voice croaks even more, “No promises.”  
  
Getting up from his seat, he rounds the table, and passes each person. Each person he’s come to know, and come to understand, and come to see as family. It hasn’t been long, but he knows, that even for all his traumas and fears and the anger and resentment, for all his paranoia and uncertainty, they all want what’s best for him. They want him to be safe, and healthy, and recover as best he can. And they want to cultivate a place for him to do that.  
  
Arsenal wraps his arm around Oliver’s neck and draws him in, and Ollie draws him in, in turn. The old man huffs through a few little sobs, hiccuping a little.  
  
“I should have done it sooner, I should have done it before-”  
  
“You’re doing it now,” Arsenal reassures.  
  
Oliver relaxes a little, reaching to cup Arsenal’s jaw with one hand, thumbing over his cheek. Arsenal’s face goes red, but he allows it. It’s his dad, after all, and he knows he means well, even if he’s a huge sap about it.  
  
He pulls him into another hug, muttering against Arsenal’s hair, “Thank you.”  
  
Arsenal squeezes into the hug that much more for it.

Oliver had thought of him as a son, and when he was faced with the idea that he’d lost his son and never known, he’d blamed himself, and worked to find him. He’d only given up to try to save himself that much more heartache. Arsenal wishes desperately that there’d been proof to go off, rather than Roy’s gut instinct, and that Oliver hadn’t stopped looking but… he understands. It’s tough, and he feels like his chest is on fire, but he understands why Ollie did what he did.  
  
A hand pulls his head into the curve of a neck. He tucks into it and sobs, a sudden harsh feeling that rips through his chest, hard and angry and so terribly sad. The hand that runs up and down his back, feeling over all the bumps of his spine, is so tender and at the same time so grounding. Arsenal isn’t sure what he’s going to do now, but he knows that Oliver cares about him, and in this brief moment, that’s really all that matters.  
  
It’s been a long time since he’s had a father.  
  
Eventually he calms himself, tiring himself out with his crying. Some things are a lot of effort, and emotional outbursts are a surefire way to zap his energy. It’s unfortunate that big outbursts, of anger, of sadness, seem to be the only thing he knows how to do anymore. But he’s trying, and the people around him understand that.  
  
What a scene to make at dinner, though.  
  
A kiss pressed to the curve of his head, Arsenal huffs a wet laugh, shaking Oliver’s grip off gently, “Alright, alright, I get it.” Choking back some of the tears still clogging up his throat, “God, were you always this pathetic?”  
  
Arsenal can see the rest of the table is smiling softly or tearing up a little at the huge display of affection.  
  
Oliver laughs his own choked up sound and presses his forehead to Arsenal’s temple for a moment, a hand on the back of his son’s neck to keep him grounded, smiling, “Maybe not, but I should have been.”  
  
“You would’a suffocated me, Ollie,” Arsenal chides, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t crave this attention and understanding right now.  
  
He’s heard Dinah and Ollie talking a lot about him over the last couple of weeks, and about everything that’s happened, and while he hasn’t sorted out all of his feelings about everything that’s happened, and it will be a very long time until he does in full, he knows rationally, that he wants things to be better. And so do they.  
  
Everyone is here to be supportive and help keep each other afloat. And now he’s ready to add his own helping hand to keeping their family going.

_His_ family.  
  
Plopping back down in his chair, Arsenal heaves a sigh, overwhelmed by it all, but…

Relieved.

Everyone goes back to their dinner, smiling and talking and having a good night.  
  
“Hey Artemis?”  
  
She glances up from her glass with a smile, “Yeah?”  
  
“You think you could help me cut my hair tonight?”  
  
Smiling softening a little, she nods, “Absolutely, Arsenal.”


End file.
